Poem: When I Died by Emma Lou Thayne

Regardless of how cautiously we plan out our route and watch out for potholes, life will always throw in a few painful detours.

Our body can betray us. Our loved ones can walk away. Our mind can begin to forget. At some point, we will die.

Confronting the hardest realities of life is brave work, and a liberating practice. For there is also light in between the dark.

Excerpt from “When I Died”

By Emma Lou Thayne

So if I now am at a distance

and more and more

connected to night

and wake up with a closed smile

that takes up my wrinkles

it is that I am occupied:

by the light that tells me

where I have been and will go and

listens with me in the ringing

and rejoicing of having had the time.

Emma Lou Thayne is a respected Utah author. This poem was published in Things Happen: Poems of Survival, one of her many uplifting and insightful books.

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