Seasons of Challenge and Healing

Life is so full of seasons, of unexpected twists and turns. Sometimes it's a rollercoaster ride of fun, sometimes the rapid-fire ups and downs can make you nauseous.
Sometimes the changes are slower, the shifts less perceptible.
Life brings its seasons of challenge and then of healing.
Othertimes, life plateaus - this is a good season too, a season of rest, of comfort or fulfilment.
I'm in challenge at the moment. Its not easy, but it's a period of growth.
Where are you?
What is the good in this part of the journey for you?

This poem is an account of two life shifts: from the challenge of loss, to the healing of new companionship.

Transitions

Earth-spattered roses marked you transition
From one life to another, but unlike your love,
The move took you to no higher world,
No paradise where you might breathe lightly again,
But left you treading the same patterns through the day
As always; at night lying alone beneath an empty sky.

Roses on a coffin lid; the first handful
Of cold dirt fell like rain, but lifted
No regenerate beauty from her cold bones.
You walked away (I imagine all of this)
With the same dignity you have carried all the years since:
Uncowed by fate or chance, bereft not beaten.

The heavy harness of bereavement has not bent your back
(Though the dullness in your eye was absent I am sure
In youth). If I am able to lighten your future
I will never seek to quench your past.
Never will you walk blindly through sun or shadow,
But may I be the blessing you count nightly beside your loss.

Louise