Sun Woman Poem by David Kowalczyk

Was the name of a Wiccan I met
while living at the Grand Canyon.
She claimed to be seventy years old,
but looked at least one hundred.
She smoked Camel non-filters,
about two packs a day,
and she hiked Bright Angel trail
down to Phantom Ranch and back
once a week, without fail.
Her mother was Polish.
Her father was Seminole.
(America truly is a place
which defies the ordinary.)


What I recall most clearly
about Sun Woman are the words
she spoke at the El Tovar Lodge
to a young woman who had just
learned that her grandfather had passed away.


'Valerie, give your grandfather
laughter, not tears, ' she said with
a smile which neither the words 'gentle'
nor 'timeless' do justice to.


'Leaving our clay shells ends nothing.
It is merely the beginning of a great adventure,
a form of rebirth. Your grandfather is dreaming now.
Dreams more beautiful and kind and honest
than anything we could ever know on earth.
He now knows a joy, a wholeness, an ecstasy,
a completion which those whom he left behind
must wait for.'