C. S. Sherin
30 June 2023
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| Photo by C. S. Sherin, 2021. |
Here is a poem that just tumbled out of me in looking at this photo I took in 2021!
2021 To Now
by C. S. Sherin
There was a time, there were times
and time was time...
not time that ticks, time that encapsulates
time of presently present...when...
minutes and seconds stretched too thin,
so thin it shaved the heart and flesh of me
like a friction burn.
Nothing
no thing
nothing and no thing
danced upon
the surface and surfaces
and surfaced to see
my heart never wavered,
except when it did.
The small sudden panic was terror rising up
to wake you, to wake us...
to stimulate proper responses to crisis
and not-crisis!
The ways of denial and avoid can never be
my way or our way,
yet at times
i did hide.
i hid from death's invasions
as the clouds thinned into a lacy veil
and the sun rested above it pointedly,
like a spotlight through a curtain
on the mainstage.
Yet there was no show
or performance
only
a weeping, a plea and plea-ing; a profound plea and ever silent plea-ing for
one to choose life and be saved medically
for another to be saved medically
for another to be saved medically and mentally
for another to be saved medically and mentally
for another to be saved from cancer.
And my roles were multitudinous and demanding
and the show was the unseen
haunting me...
so that i would save myself
save myself
save myself, at least.
But who would I live for? if no one survives?
Yet I said yes. Yes,
I will listen. I will. I will.
Because I see and hear and know... the unseen. Always have.
Yes, I say, for the loving wisdom from the unseen,
a wisdom I trust but can't fathom from here.
Three were saved.
One in the course of years. One in
a course of months. And another in the course of a year.
Scars remain. Leftover grief remains.
Unspoken heartache born of the fear in witnessing
dying, fading, and the excruciating work to recover...
witnessing the devastatingly tender, bold, raw courage to live fully
in the face of death, to survive or die...
Death, an ally at times
and a haunting plague at others...
takes the agony of plea-ing as a state of being, plea-ing in breath and being...
for someone else
for many others...
helpless helpful
helpful helpless...
Death coming, but not for certain, takes it all
like a neutral guardian of a gate, not like a friend.
It was all
tragedy to veer away from like
swerving to avoid a head-on car crash...
this was death all around me. This was death all around me
and more...
so much that I put up the skulls and skeletons
on makeshift alters of my citadel
in submission, utter submission...and humilty...
weeping weak grief
strained over, heaving to breathe,
not knowing who will recover or survive
and so I laid
dead flowers preserved
with the skulls and skeletons
things that, for me, always seem to come along with real love...
placed
along with all the glowing lights and candles
and tiny billows of copal, so as to do the
praying for me,
during the storms when I went numb
with chill
praying to... a frequency a vibration
a cosmos
for mercy for saving grace for the best possible
outcome, for
life for loved ones...
for miracles.
Grief was the stinging pain
made manageable across space in time --
tsunami to gentle disorienting waves -- that
now do give way to growing peace.
Yet remnants of pain are
still being
unearthed.
Sometimes there is too much
to process
amidst the violence and corruption-destruction
already here,
amidst the unlocked beauty
and profound presence of
trees, water, landscapes, creatures,
and animal companions who are still here...
amidst the soul family
and soul friends...amidst kind strangers
who may someday be real friends... amidst all
that is stolen,
amidst the pollution and agony
of desperation and suffering that has been so
carefully bred in our
manufactured captivity.
_ _ _
Yellow wood sorrels rose up from his grave this spring.
All on their own. Hearts with sweet lemony blooms.
His spirit lives on, mighty.
Joy arrived as a little magical dog who is now my sidekick.
And who reminds me of him.
Peace, deep peace has arrived within, deeply rooted
as a redwood.
As some loved ones thrive and others heal and others are
fixed in absence in the physical...
my body is singing a new song.
The pain and memory of pain is still here.
But, there is rebirth in an older body too.
And I feel that new life in a beautiful
new way. Like a deep soaking rain after
merciless drought. I feel freedom.
Freedom and deep peace of no regrets. Peace of wisdom.
Freedom and deep peace of right action.
Freedom of respecting the space I take up.
Freedom of being alive despite the violence and grim
determinations of our time. Celebrating life
in memory or in spirit for those whose lives were
cut short or stolen or both. Deep peace in witnessing
some things really following the path
of miracles and best possible outcome!
Deep peace in walking the mouth of spewing volcanoes
and refusing to be sacrificed. Refusing to be made small.
Refusing to abandon myself.
Refusing to abandon love and integrity of spirit or humor.
Refusing to be shaped by the hateful voices
of capitalism upon the creative and intuitive genies, such as us.
Genie. Yes. i'm a genie. i'm a jinn. im a gine. Imagine. IMAGINE.
Deep within, that magic lives.
Within those doors, death is a friend, not the guardian of the gate.
Sacred, yes sacred imagination... is the doorway to soul.
Therein live.
First responders of the fifth kind.
Trees lead the way.
Protect the rivers, ocean, trees. Protect dreams.
Empower women and children. Empower your inner child, inner wizard, inner healer.
Befriend a tree. Bless the water. Guard the river.
Soul journey,
and then let's talk.
But first, really live.
C. S. Sherin ©2023, all rights reserved.
