So Be It
The candle burns to its nub.
The scent of incense departs.
My tea, now cold.
Sadness visits a hollow cave in my heart
for what no longer is.
Opening my eyes,
tears stream down my cheeks.
Yet… I smile.
Clouds create veiled, filtered light.
In measured slowness,
the breakfast table is set.
Tears are gone.
So is the smile.
My mind fragments.
A pendulum swings
between the sweetness of spring
and a friend who now speaks in tongues—
once brilliant, now adrift.
I sit. Not hungry.
Craving everything.
He arrives perched on a thin branch in high winds.
He returns when clouds reign—
the only color amid brown, sharp-edged things.
Hello, my friend. You visit often this week.
What have you to say?
He sits. I eat.
I speak with him. Silently.
He knows when I’m finished.
The limb is bare once more.
Angels are absent—human and unseen.
Who speaks?
At 82,
pain passes through me,
or settles in.
You are paying dues
for doing what you once loved.
I see it—
dancing, hard work, the body challenged.
So young. Agile. Graceful.
Nothing can hurt me.
Runner for decades
on New York City pavement.
Nothing can hurt me.
Motorcycle riding in my fifties.
Bubba, my horse—
wind in the face,
galloping uphill,
across meadows.
A time, long ago, in Camelot.
Nothing can hurt me.
It hurts now.
I refuse.
Hubris?
Embarrassing—
not walking straight, steady.
Where is the gracefulness
I assumed forever?
This terrifies me.
Is this humiliation, or humbling?
Where are the angels now?
Who saves, soothes, protects?
I ask. Silence.
These inner thresholds are no longer cushioned.
Four walls and church organs do not comfort.
That was another time.
Wait.
Birdsong greets my early mornings.
The cardinal keeps me company.
And memories—
recorded.
Radical acts of writing.
Fragments.
Passages.
The pendulum swings—
birth,
death.
A half smile returns
as the earth gives birth—again.
I pay attention
to small astonishments.
The red cardinal
on a thin branch in high winds.
How does he hold on?
How do I hold on?
I don’t know.
Perhaps the red one is an angel.
And the stag in November snow.
The bark of an ancient tree—
home still
to millions of living beings—
reveals a hidden language.
A mug of freshly brewed tea.
These things.
Important.
Dive deeper, Lee Anne.
No.
There are wounds.
Walk into them.
Who speaks to me?
You do.
so be it
About the Art
Title: ‘So Be It, Says She’
Copyright: 2026 (Photograph)
Artist: Lee Anne Morgan