The Dividing River, the Meeting Shore

The poems of The Dividing River / The Meeting Shore were composed by acclaimed author and poet David Kherdian after the mid-life death of his closest childhood friend. By tracing their friendship back to its beginnings he brings to the reader all the lost, treasured moments that are common to each of us, and in giving them a new life, he miraculously restores our grief and makes continuation possible. In essence, Kherdian charts a new beginning. He shows us how to keep the past alive within ourselves, not only because it is alive, but because we need to understand our past in order to prepare the future. The poetry of The Dividing River / The Meeting Shore lifts people out of their present, possibly confused or angry state, and provides a pathway to something alive in us that makes acceptance and continuation possible. The Dividing River / The Meeting Shore is a complex work, a metaphysical poem in 41 numbered movements : Not a love song, although it is about the experience of love, not a dirge, although it is about the experience of loss, but a multifaceted meditation on the mystery of individual lives and the mystery of friendship, especially the kind of fated friendship that lives and grows on the long arc of destiny: The mysterious meeting of essences / when they conjoin does not consist / of the materiality the Earth provides / but rather the meeting of substances / as of star clusters (from Poem 41). The book confronts us with the big, in some ways unanswerable, questions about our own lives and the qualities of our relationships. It is also a profoundly consoling book when one reads it in the spirit in which it is written. Grief research pioneer Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote of the book: The Dividing River / The Meeting Shore is a beautiful book of poetry. Poetry about life, friendship and death. Recommended for all awakened souls who are looking for a real treat.