Closing the Gap

Closing the gap,

between love and fear,

between exile and belonging,

between mind and earth,

between pain and care.

So that we are all wet and sleek as newborns,

brushed with the dust of earth,

gathered into arms of kindness,

coming home,

return

return,

return.

Closing the gap

between shame and unified nurturance,

between trauma and embodied integration,

between blame and rightful atonement.

So that body and skin, 

feeling and thought,

inner and outer,

become lovers,

pressed tight in reconciliation,

so that psyche returns to the birthright of earth,

to the embrace of kindness and kin,

returns to primal unity,

to sovereign power,

returns,

returns, 

returns.

Closing the gap

between thought and action,

between bigotry and restitution,

between prejudice and restoration,

between abuse and safety,

between isolation and inclusivity,

between manipulation and regeneration.

So that only love remains,

fierce and brave,

in all Her wild faces.

And deep listening also 

at the interface of self and other and the inbetween,

eternal homecoming,

genesis,

return,

return.

Closing the gap 

between the spite of domination and benevolent sovereignty,

between history and the healing presence to love’s living moment,

between agony and nourishment,

between the orphaned and the inclusive hearth.

Closing the gap 

between belief and action,

between injustice and attuned advocacy,

between the injury of betrayal and fiercely accountable acknowledgment,

Closing the gap so that we all become kin 

at the feasting place of creation.

To each partake of the pristine succour

of our empowered existence

inside an ecologically embedded macrocosm of grace.

No longer split and splintered

and brutal and cruel,

but returned,

returned,

returned.

Closing the gap

between the unfathomable grief and an embodied shore,

between violent rage and rightful justice,

between dissociated terror and deeply courageous feeling,

between brutal incarceration and regenerative healing,

between shackled suppression and exuberant expression,

between need and privilege,

between brutal travesty and artful remedy.

So that body and skin and world and self 

and human and land and cosmos 

and animal and plant and microbiom 

and fire and water and earth and air 

and spirit

sit together at the one fire,

in reciprocal alignment,

coexistent in a unified field of belonging

and love,

tender and fierce,

in all Her wild faces, 

returned.

Closing the gap

between dream and lived immersion,

between prayer and reality,

between hope and accountable becoming.

So that the wound that will not heal,

the shame scar as deep as Hades,

will always be given wing and balm,

the smoke of prayers,

the touch of care,

and succour and vision,

and a friendly hand to hold in the dark times.

So that we may each walk at peace 

with our very own deaths,

life-giving,

so that we are made rich again

and whole and kind and brave.

Closing the gap within.

Closing the gap without.

Return.

Return.

Return,

to love 

in all Her fierce 

and wild

and tender 

faces.

Image "Placenta Bowl" and words © Lucy Pierce 2020