23 September 2009

There is an ache that has imprisoned my heart, wrapping itself round in a tight hug. Selfishly it stands guard like a jealous lover allowing no other to tease open its grasp. This ache, a memory trapped in a web of fear and unconscious, unresolved pain.

At times my heart is still, unfeeling, disconnected from the pulse of this pain. In denial, split off, ambivalent. Easier to hide, to slip peacefully into the warm treacle of numbness, pushing away anyone or anything that will trigger the tremor, the after shock of that quake that shook my foundations and brought me face to face with my terror and rage.

My heart is lost with no map for this uncharted grief. His death caused a tsunami that swept away the familiar landscape in which my heart travelled, weary but with faith, along a well trodden path.
Now it surveys a desert devoid of familiar landmarks, open to the elements with no shelter from the dust storms of emotions that create a whirl of confusion through which I can see no way forward. Left with no option but to lie low I must keep faith that this too shall pass.

Can there be love after death? My heart aches with this quest. He went out with the fading light of summer and my tears fell with the leaves from the trees. A blaze of colour lit the moor as his body burned to ash and my heart went into hibernation, drawing in the light to wrap close for comfort from the cold shock of his sudden disappearance.

To love again is to face this loss over and over. To love again is to become intimate with the fear, this terror of the pain and embrace it without shame. My battle weary heart longs for peace, for surrender so it can come home to rest in the tender arms of a new love and feel the soft breath of longing like the spring sunshine on a new born lamb.

As love born after death takes her first wobbly steps my heart trembles with anticipation of the fall. But if the first shoots of spring were to fear autumn there would be no flowering, no opening to the light, no summer and no harvest. To love again is to trust again. To fall over and over, like the canopy of a tree returning head over heels to the earth year after year.

I feel the soreness in my heart as the light draws in and the leaves turn to fire in the cool night air.

My bare feet walking across the green fields connect deeply with the cool earth, they know the way… this is the path home, this is where I belong. Do you get that feeling about places and about people too, like you’ve met them before or known them all your life?

You ask me ‘where are you from?’. ‘Right here’ I say, knowing that the answer you are waiting for, expecting, is only skin deep. Because what is visible to you, the mask of a distant land, is not my true face, and the question you are afraid to ask is ‘Who are you and where do you really belong?’

When you catch my passing reflection who do you see? Who can you see beneath this earth-toned façade? Can you see my mothers legs walking toward you, my father smile as my grandmother’s eyes search your face and my grandfathers hand reaches out to take yours? Who are you and where do you really belong?

Come, dance with me, your answer is not in my words. My answer is not in your eyes. Let your feet move to the rhythm of my heartbeat, let me feel your ancestors dancing in my DNA. Let our bodies tell their tale for my blood holds the memory my tongue forgot, my sweat the taste of ancient prayers. Who are you and where do you really belong?

Which Mother land gave birth to my soul? Lashmi, Durga, Kali, Saraswati in your womb I dance… with Venus, Isis, Aphrodite, Yemaya, Sekmet, Demeter… ******, mother, crone… who are you? Where do you really belong?

The eternal quest to find the source, ashes to ashes, dust unto dust the earth swallows my dance and I stand still with mud between my toes. For an instant your mask drops and I know who I am and where I really belong….

Where are the words my body whispers
When the dance moves flesh and bones?

Where are the words my feet search for
Deep in the compost of my Soul?

Where are words taking flight
On the wings of birds as
Hips circle knees and belly tickles toes?

Where do they flee, these words
Fear wraps round heart and lungs?

Where do they hide ready to trip the
Light, Fantastic, fleeting truth rising from
The deep well of my being?

Where are the words?

This tremor burns up my spine
As a vast ocean of aching promise
Washes up on the shore of my Being.

Why do I question the
Unknown territory of my heart
The shattered past has
no home there.

Why do I fear love
When it slips unsigned
Through the letterbox
Of my longing?

Like a seagull surfing the wind
My Soul hangs suspended
Wings open,
Waiting to swoop
into the embrace
Of the Beloved.

Entering the garden
Where Krishna plays
I taste the sweet music
Of your smile as a
Pair of pink lotus
Blossoms caress
In the stillness.

I listen to the flowers
Breathing their fragrance
Into the evening air
As I walk, bare hearted,
Through luminous grass
Damp with desire.

Entering the garden
Where Radha sighs
You touch my rawness
With your longing
Innocent of the storm
Brewing in my silence.

Then without warning
The clouds of grief break
To unleash a tsunami
That takes no prisoners.

Storm
Rain
River
Stones.

Wet
Leaves
Tender
Bones.

Going
Home,
G­oing
Home.

Feel the tremor…
…The flicker…
The static charge
Of bliss
Whisper HER sweet
Breath through
Your Being.

No time to stop,
No time to be waylaid
By Fears’ tearful face.
Kiss this moment awake
Caress it’s cheek,
Open your eyes
To the Beauty beating
In your trembling breast.