The way I am made seems unfit for this world,
even for this life,
this, my very own life.
And my heart hurts
in ways it has not yet found words for
or meaning from,
and the hurt is a river that rises to my eyes.
Over and over again the heart-hurt
arising to my eyes,
tenaciously arresting
the impulse to distract.
And there it flows like a river,
a trickle, a stream
and I am trying not to make this wrong,
the pain of the not fitting,
the not understanding how to rise
and reach and meet
the ask of my days
and the ask of all the souls
that have woven their way
into my warp and weft,
how to meet them all
and still have something left for me?
Still have this day,
that pulls me in a thousand ways and yet,
the only thing that makes sense
is to ball the skein of worsted wool,
the deep earth tone a nourishing,
it sings somehow between womb and heart,
and my hands circle the ball over and over
and the long loops are gathered in
to come to rest
as cohesive handful.
The gum blossoms are here with me also,
as ally,
fugitively gathered from the roadside,
in yesterday’s harrowing.
The gum blossoms gather in
the tears of the bruised heart
to their own honeyed bosoms
as I wind the wool.
Their honeyed bosoms,
so effulgent and kind,
so silvered green,
so generous in their witness.
And the clouds are a blanket on the world,
concentrating melancholy like a muted prayer,
like my heart is muffled
by the blanket of it’s ineffable grief,
an autumnal titration,
heavy and tenaciously indwelling.
And through the river of tears,
through the honeyed blossom,
through the warmth of wool
and the work of hands,
through the muffled cloud
I seek to find my way,
not knowing,
just gently loving
and seeking the simple balm
of beauty
and tears.
