If you think it's easy bringing someone back from the dead
You just try it. You can't turn around to see if they are still behind you
or they will return like a arrow to the abyss
Don't even think about it but just keep your eyes
on the dangerous path ahead
because your dead is depending on you
because your dead has no will of their own
They are just following you like a bee a flower
Maybe they even see you as a flower
and they think they are a bee
Your dead has no memory of the above world
but as they follow you they are just beginning to remember
and they want what you are leading them toward
that living world like honey
But how do you know they are behind you?
There is no proof, no sound of tread or disturbed pebble
no labored breathing on the climbs
no splash of water at the frigid fords
There is just the sound of your own steps, your own breathing
hour after hour after hour
But finally you are almost there
There is the old pillared gate and
Cerberus, the three-headed dog-monster is asleep
because nobody leaves Hell
It is no one's job to stop you
It's almost time for congratulations
It's almost time to rethink what is possible
Just, whatever you do, don't turn around
until you feel a warm hand on your cold arm.
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What is "your dead" in this poem? It could be an ideal that died to us and we want to retrieve it. It could be a memory that our lives are richer for, that if lost would haunt us like a a ghost. So much in our lives gets banished to the lower world, the shadows, and it takes courage and will power to retrieve it, but if we don't maybe we are only half-alive ourselves. It appalls me that our culture doesn't recognize the reality of a soul, of the soul. I don't get that. I never will. I see a lot of the work of healing that needs to happen these days as some form of soul-retrieval, which is why it comes up more and more in my writing.
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