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# Lost in the Milky Way
- URL: https://poetry101.love/lost-in-the-milky-way/
- Published: 2023-12-08T19:54:55.000Z
- Updated: 2023-12-16T17:52:08.000Z
- Description: by Linda Hogan
- Author: Melissa Anderson
- Tags: Linda Hogan, #Import 2026-11-04 19:11

Some of us are like trees that grow with a spiral grain  
as if prepared for the path of the spirit’s journey  
to the world of all souls.  
  
It is not an easy path.  
A dog stands at the opening constellation  
past the great helping hand.  
  
The dog wants to know,  
did you ever harm an animal, hurt any creature,  
did you take a life you didn’t eat?  
  
This is the first on your map. There is another  
my people made of the great beyond  
that lies farther away than this galaxy.  
  
It is a world that can’t be imagined by ordinary means.  
After this first one,  
the next could be a map of forever.  
  
It could be a cartography  
shining only at some times of the year  
like a great web of finery  
  
some spider pulled from herself  
to help you recall your true following  
your first white breath in the cold.  
  
The next door opens and Old Woman  
counts your scars. She is interested in how you have been  
hurt and not in anything akin to sin.  
  
From between stars are the words we now refuse;  
loneliness, longing, whatever suffering  
might follow your life into the sky.  
  
Once those are gone, the life you had  
against your own will, the hope, even the prayers  
take you one more bend around the river of sky.

---

Hogan, Linda.[ A History of Kindness](https://www.google.com/books/edition/A%5FHistory%5Fof%5FKindness/iLzoDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&kptab=getbook&ref=poetry101.love). United States, Torrey House Press, 2020.