Grief And Joy

Inspired by a poem by Pamela Sinicrope I Grief pulled me from sleep. It was a shallow sleep, so I was immediately awake and saw Grief's heavy face lined with deep furrows, but his eyes, his eyes were shinning with care. He dredges from the bottom-world on the other side of sleep deep truths of our existence. Oh, he is thorough! He will carry them to whatever surface we occupy, and there, there we can make a peace between Fate and Freedom. Do not expect a quiet moment. Grief will be our advocate, he will keep us awake and alert, but we must prepare ourselves to endure the fear that undermines us, as Fate passes across the roof of the world, and Fate's trumpets blast our pride. We must bow our heads, bend our knees, and abase ourselves beneath the Reality of Power beyond the reaches of our souls. Even Freedom is a blunt force and we will shudder until Grief restores our sleep. II Joy pulled me from sleep. It was a shallow sleep, and she entered it as music and gradually released me from its hold as the inner music swelled, then slowly dissolved, even as pale light prevailed over darkness. But Grief has his say even in a time frame measured by Joy. As he withdraws to his void, dark, and drear solitude, he demands Joy make her peace with Fate and Freedom, in her own gracious way. And so we, mortal witnesses, see a vision of a young sapling rooted along a much-traveled road, a tender maiden walking along a sea shore, and an almost invisible goddess hovering between them. They are three in one, shimmering in noonday light exchanging positions and identities, in their interplay of feminine realities, answering Grief's display of Power with Joy's apotheosis of - Beauty. (Quotations: Beyond the reaches of our souls - HAMLET A grief... void, dark, and drear - DEJECTION: AN ODE, Coleridge The Trumpets, etc. - THE BOOK OF NUMBERS The sapling, maiden and goddess - HOMER'S ODYSSEY, Book 6, l.162- 185.)