Last Night I Read Two Poems from The Blooming of the Lotus at the Wagon Wheel Word, Gill, MA1/5/2016 Last night at the Wagon Wheel Word in Gill, MA, I read two poems from my book "The Blooming of the Lotus: a spiritual journey from trauma into light."
Both poems are from Part III of my book, about the continuation of my healing process as I slowly move out into the light. The first poem is from the chapter Triggered and is called "Fairy Dust:" Fairy Dust I wish I could run, that my ankles could take it but they can’t. So I walk as fast as I am able, trying to escape the feelings inside me, trying in a race to beat what trails me. I feel as if I am carved out — hollow — so deep down, they need to dredge the river for my body, tossed and turned and lost amidst the clay-filled waters, opaque with the run-off of spring. They find me instead, my limbs caught in the tangled mass of trees sent downriver with the flood of the hurricane last fall. Eyes wide open, glassy, unseeing, I am deadened and pierced from accusations echoing the voices of my parents saying I am bad over and over — the boy’s words bringing it all back to me. Yet, as I walk along the river scribbling madly to try to exorcise these demons within me — so fierce in self-flagellation — here and there, the whisper of glimmer in the froth of tumbling waters is able to get through. On a section calm from level land beneath, I notice flicks of fairy dust picking up the light, and my body — dead and trapped in the overwhelm of hurt — feels the tiniest lick of desire to awaken from the dark just maybe. I will my body to melt away until I am spirit alone for a moment. I want to leave behind my wounded flesh and the ancient shame born with it. I want to let the shimmer on the water touch my authentic self, the one not held or maimed by words. If I let down my guard, I can see reflected there my own goodness like fairies dancing, and I know I must listen, take it to heart, and no longer let myself dwell on the bottom of the river from what he said. The sparkling waters say I am good, I am pure, I am the water and the light, I have done nothing wrong but loved and given all I could. So I ask the river now and all of life to lend me the strength so I may bury what hurts and return — born anew — with trust in myself again in only that I am good, not just in spirit but in my daily life as a mother and one who is only human. And the second poem from the chapter "The Blooming:" Being Woman I came here bleeding as in the poem I wrote in the wee hours of the morning, trying to shed the wounds of my past. Trying trying to let the last blood go, be gone forever. And then here in this circle of women, listening, sharing and — do I dare imagine? — loving, I find the possibility of entering life as others live it, no longer alone but with threads of hope weaving in among the sadness. I feel growing from the swill of rotted blood buds of roses, hearts of others joining, and an awakening into what is life. © 2015, Robin Lynn Brooks |
AuthorAs I write, I discover more and more who I am, and, as I do so, I share with you, in case anything I write may resonate with, help, or guide you. Archives
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