A visit from The Healing Muse: 'Pine Grove'

Deirdre Neilen, PhD: Graveyards are wonderful places for meditation and inspiration.

Eric v.d. Luft, poet, publisher, editor and translator from Syracuse, New York, gives us a wondrous walk through time and emotions in his poem called "Pine Grove."

If, as Einstein said, our heads

Age faster than our feet,

Then surely this is true

As we stroll among the graves

Of those we knew.

Memories

Not only

Pull our feet down,

Slow our steps,

Or even stop them,

And commit us to sorrow;

But also

Push our heads up,

Make us smile,

Make us soar

Higher and faster

Than we've ever been before;

Yet these are sad smiles all the same.

We feel split in limbo:

Hopeless death below,

Listless life above.

Then earth-centered

Gravity cracks the whip.

Thoughts fly up,

Hover,

Become heavy,

Descend as saturated rain,

Reuniting us

Into a whole,

Heads one with feet

And everything between

Complete,

Homogenized,

Dripping with self-awareness.