meditation at the cancer care center

breath still
we surrender to light

endure doubt
dark++chaos

meditate on suffering
rebirth++ balance

touch peace

create a new path

Embracing the Dead

I.
A Native American drums
his grandfather’s spirit to heal
his soul from years of boarding school
where he was punished for speaking
his native tongue, whipped
for telling traditional tales,
abused by a priest.

II.
Brazilian natives keep skulls
in their homes,
light cigarettes for them,
decorate them on holy days.
Priests bless them in a special mass.
One of the deceased’s four souls
dwells in the skull, aids the family
in sickness or distress.

III.
Mexicans eat sugar skulls,
build altars at the graves
of loved ones, bring fruit and candy
on the Day of the Dead, picnic
with ancestors in the cemetery.

IV.
St. Francis of Assisi, I think you
would understand these things, you
who shook hands with Brother Skeleton,
called Moon and Death your sisters.
Tell me, St. Francis, are the dead really dead?

Teach me to embrace Death and dance.

Wilda Morris, Workshop Chair of Poets & Patrons of Chicago and a past president of the Illinois State Poetry Society, has been published in numerous anthologies, webzines, and print publications, including The Ocotillo Review, Pangolin Review, and Journal of Modern Poetry. She has won awards for formal and free verse and haiku. Her second poetry book, Pequod Poems: Gamming with Moby-Dick, was published in 2019. Her poetry blog at wildamorris.blogspot.com features a monthly poetry contest. 

Header image, No Lotus, No Mud, by Soojin Jun