always so activating,
the summer months,
for me:
so much skin exposed,
flesh seemingly everywhere-
breasts
legs
midriffs
butt checks-
all as overwhelming
and stifling
as the humidity
and the heat
and that inner voice
incessant speak:
“cover up and hide,
yours is not a body
for display to the outside.”
depression
Marie’s Lamentation
The Mother gave birth
To three daughters
None of whom
Would ever bore another.
Two of the daughters –
The eldest and the youngest
No longer carry their uterus.
Two surgeries-
The one, reluctant to wake from Anesthesia’s deep slumber.
The other, she almost did not recover.
The only daughter with all organs intact,
Chose to walk a childless path.
The Mother
is sad
heartbroken
grief-ridden.
Blaming herself
for the end of the family line.
No legacy, only perceived decline.
“Why”” she asks, wailing at her Fate.
“Did I
in Life
make a horrendous mistake?”
hold on
i am tired, Lord.
hold on.
hold on for what?
for Me.
i don’t know that i can…
you can; you have.
i am tired, Lord.
I know; hold on.
We Fall Down
I forget –
often –
just how much I am privileged
and blessed,
allowing The Darkness to rise
and My Light to then subside.
Ironically,
gratitude never ceases,
it remains steadfast,
knowing this resurrected Shadow shall too pass.
Surrendering,
I will remember:
we fall down,
become lost,
and are –
eventually –
re-found.
Letting go,
I slowly begin to dissolve
that desperate,
terribly frightened façade.
Breathing deeply
and in-tentionally,
re-leasing lineages of conditioning
and very old stories,
the tight knots
in heart and belly
begin to relax,
they unwind.
I return –
once again –
to some humble
Presence of mind.
FORCED BIRTH
Nooooooo!
Please!
not ready to come out
just yet
need a little more time
to ground
to reorient
to a new reality
one where
I sense
the warmth
quiet
and steady
thump thump
thump thump
will be absent
need more fortification
in preparation
for this next phase
in my embodiment journey
alas, time is quickly running out-
new chemicals in her
no movement
yet all of a sudden
bright, unwelcomed light,
unfamiliar voices
drainage of the fluid that once
nurtured and fed
tiny fingers cling
try to hold on
battle lost,
civil war begins
between what is
and what was supposed to be
eventually
too many causalities
a tipping point is reached –
it is now time
to make lasting peace.
Sacred Moment
this strange,
sudden
lonely
traumatic
seclusion.
A particularly fierce form of Grace.
All a bit of a blur-
so much has taken place
as revealed by this now wizened face.
Innocence gained and lost
as we endeavor to make the most
of what is truly a Sacred Moment–
a pause, a break, space
for resurrection and metamorphosis.
Who will come of this?
Already feeling familiar pieces
falling away – cannot retrieve them
for there is no going back-
only surrender –
a radical submission,
to humility and a facile generosity
born from the remembrance
of our connectedness
and shared ancestry.
Tears and Touch
Tears
for lack of Touch;
Touch
then dissolution to Tears.
So fundamental,
touch;
essential
to our development,
to our humanity.
dissolves protective walls,
loving touch,
transforms fears,
awakens and untethers
The Soul.
Akin to breath,
the gift of touch,
a vital nutrient,
a universal must.
So, how to navigate
this time of
distrust
of all touch?
The Smile
It is generating more attention
lately –
The Smile.
It feels as if an urgent message
from The Universe,
a response to a long-forgotten prayer,
a desperate cry uttered
while in the midst of The Abyss.
“Re-member what you are,”
The Universe whispers
delicately in the ear.
With each compliment of
The Smile,
a call for immediate re-alignment
of consciousness.
LIFE (scene two)
LIFE
can seem insane.
So many of us are unable
to withstand its pain.
We do our best to live,
to contribute
to a world
constantly changing
and maddening.
Still, through it all
some of us manage not to fall.
Like a seedling
making its way up through concrete,
we spread our wings,
we plant our feet.
We’ve found our place;
we are lauded and celebrated.
But then-
in the blink of an eye,
an “apparent suicide“.
What happened?!
What went wrong?!
Does not success
bring with it sustained happiness?
What of us
for whom no one makes a fuss,
who daily squeeze into an overcrowded bus
to a job that leaves us empty and numb?
If the “extra-ordinary” so regularly succumb,
how then does the “ordinary” overcome?
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation…” Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Change to Save
I will need to change my life
in order to save it.
This I am feeling to my very core.
Don’t know how much more
I can swallow.
I’m walkin’ on thin ice,
on troubled waters that are shallow.
Born an introvert, Quiet is the air I must breathe,
what sustains and maintains me.
Without adequate doses of silence,
I lose pieces,
become untethered,
cannot see a hopeful reality,
begin to question my existence
and that of all humanity.
Why all the noise –
the incessant chatter and mindless banter?
“Y’all gonna make me lose my mind
up in here, up in here.
Y’all gonna make me lose control
up in here, up in here.”
I will need to change my life
in order to save it.
Deprived of silence,
I feel my blood boiling,
heart racing,
hands tremblin’,
mind slipping.
I can taste that bitter, flimsy line
between love and hate;
that soft, raw space
where even the gentlest among us
can suddenly snap
and do things we can never take back.
The Devil isn’t over there-
No, it plays in us all
bidding we follow
and fall-
fall so hard and low,
we can barely stand up.
I will need to change my life,
re-claim it
in order to save it.
Exactly how to do so
overwhelms and scares –
the tide is seemingly so high.
Got to go deep inside,
to The Core
lean only on that which is Truth and pure.
burgeoninc 