Insight At The Canton Peace Pole Poem by Scott J. Shepard

There was a woman I once knew.
We would meet regularly on the weekends and somedays the weekdays too.
I would take her grocery shopping, or we'd do these silly yoga poses on the gazebo near her home.
We spent an afternoon at the Nepaug Dam and would revel the waterfalls; other days by the
Canton Peace Pole.
This woman had a rare condition called Gyrate Astrophy. Slowly, she was losing her eye sight over a period of time and the condition had deeply effected her.
Yet despite her ailments, she was brilliant with this emanation that glowed this consoling love.
She had told me once she was a decedent of Gandhi and I laughed a bit and humbly thought of all the great change this woman could bring to my life.
We sat one day by that Peace Pole, the one in Canton, and we spoke, really spoke. Yet something about her made me nervous at the time. I remember she spoke to me about her friend whose mother had become very ill. We spoke about comfort and we agreed we had each other's even in our anger that mothers become ill at times and liberate themselves from ourselves as if it were this unraveling Angelou poem. I always admired her anger because she expressed it so well without regret.
She allowed herself the time to feel all the emotions she needed to feel in the moment, and I felt them with her.
I remember when I confessed to her, at that same Peace Pole in the Center of Canton all those angry, scary, defeating thoughts I had in my maddening past life,
she had gone up to one of the trees shortly afterwards and lifted her head up as if to ask for some form of loving condolence from some ancient being.
I asked her what it was she was doing and she said "I am talking to the trees; they might have something to say"
I looked on and I let her speak her piece. To this day, I still wonder what the trees had said to her, but I'd imagine it was something comforting. Some type of consoling insight, or invaluable love that directed or guided her path.
What she learned I will not know. But I am glad she stayed with me during that time.
I'm glad she was there to console me, to love me, to comfort me.