I wrote this some time ago at the time I received that dire diagnosis. My thoughts turn again to this poem as I face my upcoming, eighteen month, after the fact, test on the ninth of this month. I look forward positively to this milestone because a raven flew over my house this morning and told me that all will be well. The poem though is a reminder that we are all vulnerable to the evil around us.

Surviving the Path

I return from the edge
on a path strewn with boulders
with so many twists,
so many turns.
I lose my way
while searching
for sunny places.
But, I remain lost
in gloomy traces
where damp and decay
grasp my fragility
and hold it
until,
I shake it lose
and run to the light
where,
breathless and terrified
I lie in the sun,
until,
the shadows creep
toward me again.
Of all the paths,
this is the one
that brought me from there
to this,
my dark, cluttered tower
on a path strewn with sorrow,
three steps forward,
two back.

As I hurry along,
the meandering path,
I see not what awaits
around the next shadowed bend—
Branches reach for my face,
ferns grasp for my ankles.
I fall,
face down in the muck,
but I manage to rise,
holding on to the hope
that I’ll survive till tomorrow,
till next week,
next year,
holding on to the hope
that I can survive
the rest of my life.

Vi Jones
©March 3, 2006



Vi’s poem, below, “Surviving the Path,” is quite incredible. I always say that one of the hallmarks of a good poem is when the reader can say, “Yes! That is JUST the way it is!” Notice the exclamation marks in the sentence. When I make this statement it is usually about a poem that has touched that part of me that is always looking for beauty, always hungry for magic. I can say that sentence about Vi’s poem, without reservation. And without the exclamation marks, for this is a poem about dread. Her description is so perfect, so apt that it makes my skin crawl, because I have walked on this path. The part of the poem that is hardest for me is this: I lie in the sun/until/the shadows creep/toward me again/Of all the paths/this is the one/that brought me from there to this/my dark, cluttered tower/on a path strewn with sorrow/three steps forward/two back.” Oh yes.

It is hard to believe that it is nearly already eighteen months. I am almost a year out from my surgery. I knew about mine quite a bit ahead of time. I was scared to death. It was considered experimental surgery, they had already explained to me that there was a terrifically high incidence of mortality in similar surgeries. And because of my fibro and because I am narcotic resistant, it meant the pain would be terrifically difficult to handle. I had already asked Vi if she would stand with me as a spiritual sponsor when I had my surgery. I knew I would need more than just what the doctor could provide. She agreed immediately. This was before we knew that she would end up having very similar surgery, for a completely different reason, six months before I did.

My daughter and I were on a ‘Road Trip’ in September of 2004. We had just come down from Zion canyon to the motel in Springdale, when Lezlie checked her phone messages. She came to me quickly to tell me there was a message from my niece, who was on LightDancing, saying I should find somewhere to pick up my email quickly. I looked at Lezlie, my eyes filling with tears. “It’s Vi,” I said, “I know it.” I went to the motel office and began to try to access my email through their system. As I sat waiting for it to come through, I looked out the window. The sun was setting on the Watchman.

My parents had a house in Springdale for years. When you live in the middle of a miracle, I guess you stop really seeing it. I never stopped looking up at the mountains of glory that rose behind their little house, but I think I probably usually afforded them a quick smile before moving on. Now I looked up at the Watchman, which stands over the little town of Springdale and I was completely struck dumb by the beauty. All I could think about was Glen Canyon, drowned beneath the water. Glen Canyon that I had driven over in a speed boat, probably busy putting suntan lotion on my white skin. When Vi and I had talked about it once, I had suddenly seen that Glen Canyon meant the same thing to her that Zion does to me. I looked up at the Watchman drowned in golden light and my throat closed.

When the email confirmed that my first instinct had been right, I told Lezlie that I needed to go back up to Sinawava. If the setting sun was reflected on the Watchman, it meant that it was already getting dark in the narrow canyon where the Temple of Sinawava guards the Zion Narrows. She picked up her purse and said, ‘lets go.’

It was dark when we left the canyon and the Spirit Wind was singing like crystal down the narrows. As always, cool and clear in the hot, desert air. I came back from the side of the river and said to Lezlie, simply, “it is going to be OK.”

Six months later, Vi would send me a small earth miracle that fit in my palm, perfectly balanced with another that came the same day, from the other side of the country - with love from Maya. Together they walked me through the pain and on into recovery. Recovery was difficult for both of us. It took a long time. I’m not sure I’m there yet. And for Vi, there is always the recheck, to walk through and to pass beyond. Sometimes I still feel the ‘damp and decay grasp my fragility.’ Sometimes I still feel the ‘shadows creep toward me again.’ But much more often I feel the sun, and know the blessed feeling of rising again to find hope. I watched Vi do it before me. I saw her courage and determination and I said, “OK, then. That is JUST the way it is.” And so it was.

Since I read Vi’s poem, I have been painting. I have tried to do both the Watchman with the setting sun on it, the way I saw it that day, and the river at Sinawava, as the light disappeared and the Spirit Wind came like a prayer, down the narrow canyon.

Obviously, I can’t capture it, but then I’ve never seen a painter who could, so I don’t feel so bad.

Come and see it. Come and feel it.

Here, where the great Rocky Mountains
Flush crimson and dip to kiss the desert
Mukuntuweap, Arrow of Roaring Water
From the Mountain of the Sun
To the Temple of Sinawava
Kayenta of the lost Anasazzi
This refuge, this haven,
Of strength and peace, this
Zion
"the place where God dwells,"

~ Winnie

Sunset on the Watchman

Sinawava at Night Fall

That is the Way it Was....

I truly believe, Winnie, that your speaking to the spirits at Sinawava helped me through my ordeal. That and the fact that my surgeon was an angel in disguise. After all my pre-surgery tests, he stated matter of factly that he was was going to cure me. Now that's a broad statement for a man of western medicine. But, you know, I believed him. What is even stranger is that when my doctor referred me to this particular surgical group, I got the new man on staff. I didn't know anything about him, but I liked him from the moment I saw him and I had no doubt that if anything could be done, he could do it. After the surgery, when I was awake enough to understand, he stated in no uncertain terms that I was cured--that I did not need chemo or radiation. It wasn't an easy recovery ... it took several months before I was really back on my feet. I have learned since from my own doctor that I am the only person she knows that has survived that particular type of cancer and that I was extremely lucky to find a surgeon who would perform the operation--most don't want to do it because it's too risky and the outcome dubious at best. I have also discovered that my angel surgeon has moved on--is no longer affiliated with that surgical group--I hear he is in Utah--possibly in the Salt Lake area. The strangest fact of all is that he was here just long enough to take care of me.
It was you, Winnie, who spoke to the spirits in Utah, and it was the prayers and thoughts of my friends from across the globe, and it was a surgeon who was an angel in disguise.
Luv, Vi