The music of my life
has changed
from jangling chords
to sweet melody…
the cacophony
has given way
to softer strains…
now a lullaby
of peace…
undercurrants of joy
instead of
discordant
disharmonized notes
of fear.
This is a melody
I can twirl to.
No longer cowering…
I fling out my arms
and dance!
There is a
delicious glow
in the clouds tonight.
Like just ripening
mangos…
their bruised flesh
threatening rain,
holding the
sweet promise
of sensual,
thrilling pleasure…
fat drops
on hot skin
washing the day away
It is amazing to me
how different
life can be,
how much can change
in two short years.
The summer heat
used to feel oppressive…
Now I feel kissed
by the sun.
Nights of fear
and suffocating tension
have given way
to peace..
and ecstatic joy.
“Home” felt like
a battlefield –
Now I am at home
in myself
and I find it a place
of grace…of peace.
Beauty that existed
only in moments
now whisper to me
constantly
singing me to sleep.
Each night I am
kissed by the wind
instead of
weathering the storm.
Alone…never lonely.
I have found
family
at last.
The silence of twilight
is broken by
a raucous chorus of
– croaking –
full of a joy
untouched by peals
of thunder
or threat of wind.
Glorying under
a gibbous moon
singing unencumbered
while night birds
provide counterpoint….
A cacophonous melody…
the sounds of home.
There is a silence
in the space between
that used to
terrify me.
Now it sings me
to sleep…
There were
hidden storms there…
violent… dangerous…
Now there is the
gentle kiss of wind
and starlight…
I have found
my dance partner…
now I twirl…
arms flung out –
embracing the dark –
loved by the
meteors…
making wishes.
How strange
and wonderful
to find
-all these years later-
that there is love
that doesn’t hurt
doesn’t break you
doesn’t leave scars
on your soul.
It is an odd thing
to live in the space
between…
I am a woman
mid-fourties.
I have no children.
I have no mother.
No one knows what
to do with me
on Mother’s Day.
Sometimes it feels
like the space between
is supposed to be shameful
or somehow
less than.
But I don’t feel ashamed
or lessened.
I feel loved by the wind
comforted by the dance
of leaves against
a moonlit sky
and I don’t shy away
from the lonely hours…
Songs of frogs
and night birds
bid me to dance
-barefoot-
among them…
I feel wild
and alive.
Don’t pity me.
I don’t pity myself.
Come…let me teach you
the dance of the dark
and the glory
of the night wind.
You reach out to me
with claws…
those hooked talons
that once looked like home.
The fingers of my soul
still trace over and over
the road-map of scars
your “love” left
on my heart
…still flinching
at the ones
yet unhealed…
straining at the stitches
of grace and
tentative hope…
trying not to
reopen the wounds.
There is a wistfulness
on the air
and the trees are dancing
to a symphony
…unheard…
yet I feel the notes
thrum through my soul
and settle on my skin
like a lover’s touch
inviting me to dance…
to take his hand
and trust…
so now I dance…
one with clouds
with treetops
with birdsong
and falling stars.
I dance to the symphony
I now call
freedom.
The dying light
all golden
turning trees
into shadows
wraps me in
a solmnenty
and I feel the weight
of the day
dropping down.
I feel the ripples
through my heart
pebbles in a pond
of memory
and I do not escape
unscathed.
captivatingbitter 