I can’t unnotice this fist
that has grabbed my chest
and squeezes it hard, this prickly balloon
that seems to have blown itself up
in my belly. To be still today
is to notice that so much inside me
is writhing, squirming, thrashing.
Hello discomfort. Hello agitation.
Hello wishing that stillness
could be more still.
Eyes closed, I watch myself
as I sit in the middle of the empty room,
sunlight stretching across the floor
in bright and angled shapes.
I zoom out and see the whole house.
Zoom out farther and see the yard, the trees.
Zoom out until I see our small town,
then a blur of green and brown,
then the familiar blue and green curve of the earth.
As it spins and orbits, the earth is anything but still,
and yet such spaciousness surrounds it.
Oh, sweet woman sitting still in your room
with your hand on your heart
and a world of thrust and upheaval
spinning inside you,
right now, it’s like this.
You’re being moved. You’re still.
It’s like this.
*
Um, yeah … so if you read yesterday’s poem, I have to laugh… yesterday being still felt so easy, so simple, so open, so, well yummy. And then today??? Oh friends. This is one of the great gifts of poetry–every day the chance to notice what is here. And every day, the same thing feels so new.
On my daily program “The Poetic Path,” I use the tag “Seeing the same world in a new way … with poems.” If you haven’t checked out this other daily offering, perhaps consider it. It’s an app for your phone, found on the Ritual Wellbeing app. Unlike the daily poems, i curate them … and it’s a chance to hear the poems aloud. I always talk a little about where they came from and how they were written, then read the poem again, and then offer an optional writing/thinking prompt for you. There is a monthly or annual fee for Ritual–and there are MANY other programs available on it. You can try it out for free. If you’re interested, from your phone visit HERE.