This is a poem I wrote recently for a graduate school project called "Self as the Therapist." I love learning how we bring our essence to everything we do, there is no experience wasted. Happy Ash Wednesday!
Self as Therapist
Because I am a Poet
I believe that words
are magic keys to a language
deeper than speech,
that the body is a ledger,
both scribe and script.
Yes and yes,
most of us need to hear again yes,
you are well, please come,
you are welcome.
Because I am a poet
I have learned the process
of distillation, to be still,
particular poems have
been writing me for years,
in the same way small and large renderings
have taken decades to crawl
from under covers,
lifetimes to creep toward healing.
Because I am a mother,
I know that people
are soft creatures, and at eight
and eighteen and eighty,
still need beholding as though
they just filled their first lungs,
that every single day
we long to delight another,
to feel our beingness matters greatly,
to have someone say
you are just what I needed,
to have someone show us
we ourselves are just who we needed.
As a therapist who mothers
my office will be nest,
your cry will awaken
tear and milk ducts,
I will feather our time with flora and fauna,
invite angels and ancestors,
your flight is my greatest achievement.
Because I am a Lover,
I will tend your harem of beloveds
those including truth and beauty,
wild faithfulness and abandon,
purity and pleasure.
I will be top and bottom,
we will Tango, lead and follow,
there is a drum,
a bow pulled across strings,
there are pillows to plump
and curtains to hang in the sun.
I will meet you in warm blue
darkness at the
grove of forgiveness
and show you the tree branches
upon which to hang your defenses
Because I am a Wounded Healer,
a Healed (Healing) Wounder
I am guide and guided,
torch holder and circle
of darkened stones.
Let us stitch sinew
so we may hoist and host
each guest,
they arrive as a tear,
a tear, as in fabric or flesh yielding,
a moan, a memory
a stretch, some small patience,
a turn toward, a puddling,
a cupping.
Let us walk together to an altar
that has been waiting
for even
the smallest gesture
toward love.