S C E N T | H E R

She crosses in
To no one’s

Her life’s
Purpose a
Series of

Today it’s
Reaching the
Having no
Fear in

Her eyes are
Brown and her
Vision clear
She has no care

Whether lights
Across the street
Blink green or red
She’s rule blind

Yet spellbound
By donuts
She can dunk
So never did
Hear the spin

That led to
Heart failure
To meet her
Long-term goal
Of reaching

What is perceived as knowledge often feels like fodder for enlightenment that can’t be seen further than my fingertips. I touch people accidentally but purposefully because my fingers feel frozen, holding the weight of ignorance in a pointless place. I’m neither happy nor depressed, only silently shifting in that state where others often ask if all is okay, seeking affirmation that truth will betray in either a smile or tear. People seem to demand that we not find contentment in the middle, yet life seems to ask otherwise, so crosswalks came to mind. I tried to fathom the age when countenance alone earns a pass for feigned concern. Then I watched an older woman leisurely cross the street before me as I sat in the driver’s seat, ignoring my green light, yielding to her stroll like those beside me, all connected through an unspoken decision to value her life more than our comings or goings. Was it because she seemed unable to stand straight, was it the white hair, the wrinkles, the exhaustion in her steps, or was it the grocery cart she pushed that led us all to yield but not ask if she was okay? Then I wondered about rules and laws that appear to preserve life yet fail to enforce the care of those preserved. Then I thought of donuts and milk, and of those refusing to yield to another’s predilections, and how easy it is to kill someone by restricting their freedom to taste the parts of life that bring them sweetness and comfort. Then I considered how easy it is to kill ourselves by fully succumbing to that same freedom. She was walking the middle way along with a crooked path none could see once she’d reached the other side. It’s that way for many, where reaching the other side of a short-term place is often no more than contending with an intentionally placed curb that forces a step up or change in direction. Depending on how quickly or slowly we move, some might ask if we’re okay, but most will forget us, not having ever remembered us any more than by our walk, unless by chance they held our hand to cross the same road. I don’t suppose we ever forget those who remind us that reaching home is not a goal to strive for so much as it is a state of being or those who take time to show us that we’re not alone.