As the Green-wood Poet, I’ve been to Greenwood easily twice as many times as I’ve been to the Met Museum and was still surprised by the margin path in Greenwood (I don’t really believe in dashes, even in proper names, only em dashes and only for parentheticals). The Met I’ve visited some fifty times and:

1. I still haven’t visited every room.
2. The first rooms I visited have changed.

So that’s true of Green-wood (lots of new neighbors if you consider the pandemic). I discover new alcoves, new groves, new tombstones every time I visit.

However, of all the prayer and poetry walks I’ve attempted there — including the three year meditation that led to the Greenwood Poet — I’ve never come across Margin Path. I was pushing my cart up the long hill that rounds Abraham Jacobi’s grade and praying about how little margin I had in my life and this sign came out of nowhere:

I had been praying about margin in my life — have passed this spot a million times and had never come across it. We’ve had a terribly rough season over the past 18 months. Tara had 150 doctors appointments leading up to the death of my father, my aunt, a spiritual mother, the memorial service for both her grandparents, the move of my grandma into the nursing home (therefore estate stuff there), the near death of our 13-year old dog (read: life the length of our marriage), post-COVID, etc, etc, etc. I’ve flown more in a year than I ever want to again, this post-pandemic when I’d gotten (for rather morbid reasons) my introverted wish of staying home for a year. They painted and sealed the basement (good for longevity), which drove literally hundreds of mice into the six floors and eighty units upstairs. (We’ve personally caught 15 and that’s a small number compared to some neighbors). A friend from the theater production world is entering end-of-life stages.

The list goes on. It won’t recount it all.

We needed margin.

I’m praying.

This path emerges.

And right as I round the corner of margin path in Greenwood, I see it:

On the other side of margin, the chapel in Greenwood tolls. Life. Trees all on that side of the path.

On this side of margin, death.

Dead grass.

Bone white tombs.

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Alright.

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So we’ll make some margin.

— LTMS