If you can soften your body, your heart can settle, and if your heart can settle your mind can listen.
—Augusta Kantra
When you are full of self-regret and turn
your fists on your own heart, I hope you will
recall that summer afternoon when you
dove headlong in the pond and floated there
until your fingers pruned, until hard thoughts
were soft as milkweed down, until you were
a gentle thing without a thorn, until
you were the song of birds and frogs and dusk …
I know how shame and not-enoughness turn
us on ourselves. And that is why I plant
this seed of memory. When shame shows up,
remember, self, you float. Remember, you
can soften. Love, like water, gentles us.
Such gentleness is how we learn to listen.