If we think life and death are opposites,

Maybe we shroud our hearts in false mystique

With the segmented ideas of various words.

Then some might say,

In order to correct us,

Let’s more say that death and birth are opposites,

With life being something else in between. 

But what if death and birth are the same doorway,

And it only seems different depending on

Which side you look out from

Or from which side you look in?

In the labor of death,

Those loved ones who gather

To support you while you die,

Are all at once, trying to hold on to you,

And trying, eventually, to let you go.

You slip away, through the doorway.

Meanwhile, the loved ones who 

Are expectantly waiting for you to be born

Watch the doorway anxiously. 

They want you to come, but patiently

They wait. They know it’s not best

For you to arrive much too early 

Or much too late. And finally,

You’re here, and they see your beautiful face at last,

As your mother has delivered you,

And the nurse brings you out through the doorway.

The labor of birth,

The struggle of life,

The will to survive,

The brightness of what we call day,

The darkness of what we call night,

The humanity of being

Always alive,

Stays with us along such a powerful line,

A continuum of possible consciousness 

That is all the same,

If we can learn to go beyond 

Our temporary definitions

To reach beyond 

The various stages of this big game

We call Life.

-jenn