Please, I tell myself,
don’t take this lightly.
Don’t walk into this room
as if it’s just another room.
Come with reverence.
Please, I say to myself—
all of my selves—
please don’t stride
across this wooden floor
as if it isn’t the last place
your son brought the world
into his lungs,
the last place he loved
and ached and wept.
So I sit and breathe
until I feel it rise in my chest
how sacred it is, this place.
I sit here until I feel
my attention split.
I notice the urge to leave.
I choose again to stay,
and the choice baptizes me.
Please, I say to myself,
please slow to the pace of stone.
Nothing to do but be here.
And the crying comes.
And goes. And comes again.
And goes. I close my eyes and
let the shadows grow.
Then open my eyes and look
beyond the window to the sky,
the cliffs, the lake.
Please, I tell myself,
do not refuse to see it is beautiful.
What is the part of me that dies?
And what is the part that rises,
slow and new, to walk again
into the world?