The Phoenix & Rebirth

FOR STEPHANIE — MY LOVE:

He Said:

So there was a time, not too long ago, when life had me worn down.  Having a terminally ill son with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, losing both parents, and other assorted catastrophes in life will do that to you.  I felt that I had accomplished things career wise.  I was an attorney, professor, producer, director, writer.  I had accomplished so many bucket list items including gambling at Monte Carlo, attending the Cannes Film Festival, travelling around the world including London, Rome, Paris, et al, winning two Emmy awards and other accolades, being published and having programs distributed internationally, etc., etc. 

But those days were gone.  Those feelings were gone.  In many ways, my life had degenerated into online poker and complacency.  I had lost my drive…my zest…my ambition…my mojo, if you will.

And then I met my better half, my soul mate, my love.  She rekindled in me the creative spark of my youth.  My totem was always the Phoenix and, like the mythological bird, I was reborn with a new zest for life despite all of the hardships and obstacles.  I had written a poem to her to try and express those feelings of rebirth.  Due to the computer age and several crashes, she lost the poem and has been going crazy trying to find it — even to the point of thinking about friends with whom she may have shared it.

I was going to give it to her on our wedding day in just a few weeks.  But being the child that I am, I can’t wait.  So here it is — for Stephanie, my love.  I found it — like I found you.

CHARON

Like Charon on the River Styx,

I was ferrying along the murky

Waters of Purgatory,

Neither living; nor dead; but

Adrift in a vacuous sea of nothingness;

Emotionless; Passionless;

Floating,

Drifting,

Towards

My own personal Armageddon—

Complacent that silence would become

My shroud, my eternal armor…

Unbeknownst and unheralded, a speck,

Matured to a flicker,

Ignited the oily, empty sea around me—

Until I, myself, was helplessly consumed

In the flames.

And now I sit, engulfed in your light,

Resurrected

And happy at last.