Patrick Mahoney's story of a bike accident, brain damage and poetry will resonate with anyone who has peaked over the edge of their own mortality. A day of photographic collaboration staged in a reborn Berkeley house yielded so many life lessons I'm not sure how to spell it all out sufficiently, so I'll simply share a poem written by Patrick titled "Heaven".
Heaven
Where I want to be
until I find out
I’m already there.
This world beyond
is inside the wool
sweater my mother knit,
behind these eyes
my fingertips touch
each morning. I live outside
lands long settled and embrace
minutia—I smell the coffee
ground, then taste it brewed.
I feel the dirt road with my feet
through my black faded Chucks.
The end of the road
goes well beyond sight.
So I turn on tips of toes
and I am breathing deeply—
the air, tasting of oak-moss,
my eyes—still closed.
Read Patrick's story "Again I Formed Whole" written by Kara Peters HERE.
