Of Eternity's Girl
There have been some milestones passing. On Sunday 26 November, the first day of the 500th week started: the 500th week we have had her spiritual being but not her physical body any longer. In America, it was four days after our Thanksgiving celebration.
We have had her spirit with us if we have chosen to open to this; 500 weeks is close to ten years, and not every one of us has had the experience of her love, not constantly over every one of those weeks or days.
Ki chose to move herself into another world because her deep pain was always there when she awakened, no matter whether her tortured sleep came at night, during the day, twilight, mid-morning, whenever... "I can't do this anymore... I will just have to keep on hurting...I'm sorry" were among her final words posted here on LJ (in her original journal, of course, not this Memorial one.)
We are also about halfway through the current 8-day celebration of Hanukkah, the miracle of eight candles lighted each night when there was only enough oil for one. In the Jewish tradition, it's the period of holy days most closely associated with light.
In the Western and Eastern Christian traditions, we are only a few days away from Christmas, the remembrance of the Nativity of the prophet and teacher Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Your co-Mod Otter and I have been very active on Facebook recently, that's why there have not been many (or any) posts here.
During these seasons of light, Brad has been assembling a small photoMonograph book of images drawn from Israel (when he visited), from Holland (when he lived there), and from America (his home now.) And Ki is right here helping with the process. It's a remembrance of her life as well as a milestone of Brad's, in that this is the first book for both of us.
The title comes from the last line of a 67-line poem, the final section of which introduces the book. In a vital way, Ki has written this also, through my hands; it's a dialogue:
I can't be who you are
I can't sing what you say:
the Canon we love, the tapestry weave,
your fingers on keys
dancing measures of peace...
So since you are asking
I want you to know:
past those miles of hurt
and through these years of our woe,
the stars are still singing
the warmth of the sun;
and through the sound of our wings
this silence now comes,
and their symphonies mist
round Eternity's child.
All waters dissolve, all tears disappear.
Come here Mentor, you will mark
the starry-arced paths of Eternity's Child;
Come on, Mentor, you will feel
the spike-punctured spume
crest Eternity's tides;
These pine-splintered leaves
enclose my crimson-sheathed steel;
and your evergreen cones,
round my oblivion
midst griefs of this night,
cry this wreath of veined light,
opened circle to twirl,
to cradle forest-warmed curls
Of Eternity's Girl
There's no period at the end because there is no period to the journey.
Practically every word is relating to something in Ki's life and writing, and explaining all the linkages would make this post much too long, we'll do it in the next one.
I do want to mention an early and longtime LJ Friend, emeraldwilwarin. Kayla has written a book titled "Butterfly Paperweight", and she also has inspired this post. We have touched a few times on Facebook.
The intention of the poem is to bring you along through Kiota's last moments in April 2008, and into her places now where there is no time: all time is the same time, and all places are the same place: she can be --- and is --- everywhere and nowhere at the same moment, as we type this and as you read it and as we touch you.
Or not. As you will.
And composing the poem is not easy to do because we're asking words to build bridges through time and the words have to be stretched to bursting.
Blessings Be for all of us around her table of light. This night and all of them.
:Brad, co-Mod with Otter of Ki's Memorial Journal