The sun and wind rest on my skin
like absolution,
the memory of fear of fire receding,
and in the place of what has burned away,
I’m walking in this newly minted freedom

Beyond all words for this, the sense
that passing through
is worth whatever’s lost, and all it cost me,
and here the holiness of  being born anew
completely has outshone what I had called me

There is no going back,
for nothing past remains –
my feet step, awed,
on new terrain.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 27,  2021