…
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
You must to able
to do three things:
To love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
-Mary Oliver, excerpt from “In Blackwater Woods”, American Primitive
I must hold my humanity to my bones
Bare, dangling skeleton
Jeers, taunts, embarrassments, tears,
Laughter, play, sun’s warmth,
Loss, more loss…..
Friendship, helping hands, caring.
Hammers pounding, saws etching, matches searing,
Words tearing, eyes piercing,
Face suffocating.
Can’t be embroidered in a collar,
Can’t be carried in a pocket.
It is woven into my skeleton,
The thread that weaves is air.
It will be a lifetime of healing from severe childhood traumas.
I am fragmented, yet whole.
Connection is moments of awe and more wonder.
In a sacred moment, I knew God to say to all of me,
“I am the air you breath”.
In that moment, God within my bones, felt warming.