Three Hundred and Sixty Degrees

My friend, Helen, posted this thought-provoking poem on our writing circle page this morning:

 One Hundred and Eighty Degrees
Have you considered the possibility
that everything you believe is wrong,
not merely off a bit, but totally wrong,
nothing like things as they really are?
If you’ve done this, you know how durably fragile
those phantoms we hold in our heads are,
those wisps of thought that people die and kill for,
betray lovers for, give up lifelong friendships for.
If you’ve not done this, you probably don’t understand this poem,
or think it’s not even a poem, but a bit of opaque nonsense,
occupying too much of your day’s time,
so you probably should stop reading it here, now.
But if you’ve arrived at this line,
maybe, just maybe, you’re open to that possibility,
the possibility of being absolutely completely wrong,
about everything that matters.
How different the world seems then:
everyone who was your enemy is your friend,
everything you hated, you now love,
and everything you love slips through your fingers like sand.

Of course, it provoked some thoughts I wasn't quite ready to handle emotionally. But, now that they are on the surface, I thought the best way to deal with them is to use it as a mentor poem as I write one of my own.  I was surprised by the turn mine took. 

Three Hundred and Sixty Degrees
by Annmarie Ferry

Have you considered the possibility
that life is just one big circle,
that you will end just as you began,
naked and helpless, reliant on others?
If you've done this, you know how terrifying
those thoughts can be, how the circle of life,
although a nice-sounding euphemism, 
isn't always as pretty as it sounds. 
At the same time, you can also appreciate the gifts maturity has
bestowed upon you--generosity, wisdom, empathy, calmness.
If you haven't done this, it may just be you're not ready,
ready to face the inevitable; maybe you watched a loved one
whither away before your eyes and reliving that pain
is too much for you to bear at the moment. 
Or, it might just be that you choose to live in the moment,
trust the powers that be to guide you on this continuum, 
truly embracing the idea that life is a never-ending circle,
and that the end here is really not an end at all, 
but a beginning of another rotation, 
open to all the possibilities in the universe 
that your physical body and mind just cannot fathom.

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