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Land Beyond by Elise Lark

  • Poetry

I walk

where the deer walk

and the lone winter walker, following

the last vestiges of winter to the overlook—

the Good Place

where I can rest

in my belonging, knowing my tracks too

will soon be erased.

And I wonder if our trials, like footprints,

become untraced

and all that remains

in vast, indistinguishable space

are the small rivers

of giving.

I don’t know

if I have ever truly given,

but it is not some heavenly god who will at the last step

show or tell me, but the good earth,

this tangible god,

I blindly tread.

Elise Lark, PhD, LCSW, is the visionary founder of Circle of Friends for the Dying.