Ashes

Friends, you haven't lived until you've had an infusion of chemotherapy drugs on Ash Wednesday.

I find I am crazily moved by the joy of ashes.  Gorgeous ashes, silvery, strange and potent.  Why would ash ever be an emblem of denial or irretrievable failure?  Ash proves a great success of burning; ash is memory.  We are made of ash, and this is beautiful news.

What a fearsome, magnificent, poetical day.