Down the Road to the Future—Going Fast

The more we hang onto the past
        the faster we reach the future.
Times change, the world reshapes
        itself, cycles repeat:
                but new ideas also arrive.

Re:Vision—in order to see clearly
        You Must Revise Your Life.

Stafford woke up the morning of his death
        early, as usual, and composed in hand-writing
                before anyone else was awake
                         what became his final poem.
                He also wrote a letter to a friend that day.
        An active man, he was aged 79, when he died.
Later, his family found the poem and letter in his study.

Hilde, my mentor, was a medium. She died in 1999, in her 90th
          year. Hilde lived in Germany during two world wars.
                 She worked in the underground against the Nazis;
                         when she was brought before the Gestapo
                 her psychic powers saved her life.
         Near her death she warned me "If you want to travel
do it sooner than later. The worst is yet to come."

My ancestors were Doukhobors. They were spirit wrestlers
        and pacifists. In Russia, during the nineteenth century,               
                no one could force them to kill a fellow human
                not in the name of the Czar, nor in the name of their country,
                        not even in the name of God.

         Peasants, they were willing to face torture to cling
to this original idea on their own: the year was 1895
        when they burned their firearms and stood in front
                of soldiers on horseback, unarmed.

Now we are going fast down the road—to the future.
        Where the road forks, will we make a decision
                to go this way, or the other?

Copyright by Carolyn Zonailo: www.carolynzonailo.com, 2009