There is a secret about our lives
hidden in our days and dreaming nights.
It lies before us having been born
when we were born and began.

It is the path where no one has ever gone
and no one will ever go again,
the one we make for ourselves each moment
when we think no one knows or cares.

Each step a choice among the thousand choices
picking our way through briars and brambles 
on a way that once seemed clear and straight
but now we are lost on tortuous holy grounds.

We find ourselves in the thrall of liminal space
held within the arms of broken time
where the past flies fast away
where what comes we cannot always choose.

Shall we believe in the lives we've led
given all arguments to the contrary?
We must. We must hold to the way
we began when we fell from darkness into light.

We do not know the secret cause
travelling with us through our days
though it is ours alone, our dear companion,
cherished and named - our soul.
___________________________________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - April 25, 2022

This, from Joseph Campbell in "Thou Art That, Transforming Religious Metaphor:" 

"The secret cause of your death is your destiny. Every life has a limitation, and in challenging the limit you are bringing the limit closer to you, and the heroes are the ones who initiate their actions no matter what destiny may result. What happens is, therefore, a function of what the person does. This is true of life all the way through. Here is revealed the secret cause: your own life course is the secret cause of your death."