The Journey Poem by Theresa Haffner

on our way to the city
we encountered the remains of other travelers
whose journeys once traversed our same terrain

on a hillside grown thick with brambles
was the wreckage of those souls
love had left behind

one was

STRUNG

like a bead

pierced by a needle
run through the heart
by a thread
and suspended from the trees on a string

some were

HUNG

like desiccated fruit

withered drying in the wind
hanging from the twisted branches
barren of a leaf

the rest were

FLUNG

their hearts

WRUNG

dry of emotions

like grains of sand to the far reaches
of the cosmos where sand and sea unite in the
infinity of space

beside the road
where the silence of the inner ear
makes images from the wilderness of familiar things,

i make the pilgrimage being once more in pursuit
of that which brings transformation

i, the priestess

i, the prophetess

survey the wasted efforts of those whose
paths had been turned away

and seek to perform the sacrament
on the high hilltop
where wildflowers

queen anne’s lace, flowering dill, purple dock, ragweed and goldenrod,
yellow daisies and tiger lilies grow

along the mighty highway
we saw mile after mile
of broken glass


[“It is relatively common for experienced (marijuana users) to feel themselves to be more… open and filled with wonder at the universe, to find sexual love to be a union of souls as well as bodies, to feel nonphysical kinds of energy flowing in the body, to feel at one with the world, and to feel that time comes to a stop. Not quite as common, but still frequent, are experiences of mind-to-mind contact with others (telepathy) and feeling in touch with a higher power or god.”
- Transpersonal Psychologies by Charles T. Tart.]