What Is Behind

artwork by Surendra Jones


And so...Here I am, the things that have changed me have all passed away. I am the only thing that I can be.
And now, what do I cling to? Whose hand do I hold onto? Can there be life without death? or light without darkness? Can there be stillness without turbulence? or music without silence?
Someone I know died today. This morning. He left behind a wife, two young children. One breath here and the next gone. And for me nothing has really changed. A few moments where I realized: one day that will be me, today, tomorrow, twenty years. What will I have been? What am I leaving behind me? I asked and answered this same question a year ago in my journals, it went something like this:
"I'm not leaving anything. What makes me so meek? I have fought in battles that most people could not imagine. I have traversed through valleys so dark, so cold, so lonely. I have victoriously ascended, slowly clawing my way out. I have tasted the bitterness of defeat, and stared into the face of a demon sent to destroy me. I have watched rain pour down upon my life, and felt Your warmth as if the sun rose at my back. I HAVE COME FROM FAR AWAY! Every enemy, defeated, lies hushed in my wake. What else must I face, what will it take for me to rise? Or is THIS it? "
A part of me still feels she is leaving nothing, perhaps because what I desire to leave is a mighty and noble thing, but moving through time to this perspective, maybe I have left something. I have loved.
There is life without death, there does exist a light that has never known darkness, there is infinite stillness, and an illimitable music within silence. You see, where there is truth there are answers. There is no question without its sure and consummate answer.
The things that change me pass away. Circumstance, influence. Are my thoughts confined to this life?