It used to seem as if big changes happened in our lives perhaps every three or five years. Now, most of us experience big change about every three or five days!
We're living in times that feel as if we can't count on just about anything to remain the same for long. It's unsettling, and it's causing so very many of us to dig deep, and to find ways to stay centered and keep our tender hearts open.
I don't have all the answers, but poetry is one way I search for them--for universal truths that find their way into words that may help to guide me through confusing times of uncertainty and deep growth.
I hope that some of the following poems will help to both meet you in the challenging place you may be in, and to bring perspective that goes beyond the dear mind, helping to see things from the perspective of Soul...
It is your own life that you desire
to cherish.
Like one brings the downy tuft
of a dandelion to the lips,
blows softly, prays
to give everything away,
keep
only what remains,
of a life well-lived;
a life well-loved...
Nourished and Blessed
by the Suns & by the Soils
and by whatever it was
that finally
opened you.
Life conspires to bless us with an
unrelenting Grace.
Who among us has not been touched
by this generous hand,
freeing us,
one
or many layers
at a time?
You are the lucky one
who has known annihilation
and then absorption
back into the Love
you seek.
And it is you who knows
that even as the soul-cry rends your very chest,
the whole of the Universe
shakes
with Love.
In this place of All
there is at long, long last
no place
left
to
fall.
There is that knowing-moment
when you realize: Something has ended.
You round a corner, taking a casual left
or a sharp right, and suddenly you just know
that something, somewhere has
already turned to ash.
Then your heart begins to harden;
all of your actions informed by a decision
to do everything you can to stop yourself
from loving what’s left.
Photo frame by bauble, you begin
to practice imagining them gone.
You try to picture all of the pictures
without faces—just frames—
packed away, or still set in the slim
film of plastic
before you slid a fine
fingernail into them:
frames of your Dreams…
Now the cat curls wherever you curl
because it knows, too, that something
is preparing itself
to steal off into the woods, and to lie down
beneath the canopy of stars or clouds;
the branches, and the boughs;
the needles, and the leaves;
around the roots of a thing…
One million diamonds
will tumble from your eyes,
made from a different kind of pressure:
the force of the Soul.
Oh, the staggering gift of growth,
and everything
everything
the Soul keeps inviting you
to grow
into.
The poems you've read here are available in the book, Home Remembers Me, a collection of over 90 poems written by Em Claire that support the journey of "a Spiritual being having a Human experience". Also available on audio as a double-CD set, read by the author.