Breached…

Recently, the mouth of our river was manually breached.
It was holding back flood-waters,
the stench was growing,
people on low-lying lands were afraid…
it had to be released!
Though some sea life was lost with the flow,
the relief was palpable.
It made me think of my own bottled-up pain.

I may seem happy
but inside I’m broken.
I search the skyways
and highways for you
I look at the stars
and hope you’ll shine on me.

The world sometimes dims
to an unbelievable low,
I can hardly see through the mists of my mind.

your memories are etched
into every particle of my being.

You belonged to me once
before madness came into the world
and turned it upside down.
When love really was enough!!

I dance when I’m broken open
I dance through this pain.
When twilight descends
and I’m completely soaked through with sadness.
I reach into my brokenness
and breathe in the sweet sounds of evening…

The night-birds usher me back to beauty,
bullfrogs return me to praise!

Sometimes I cry at first light,
letting the waters of heaven rush through me
so I can flow again with the winds
and ride again on tides of hope…

At dawn, I have thoughts that won’t let me be,
they startle me
their wounding is real!
Like invaders waiting at the door
I get ambushed by grief.

Words have legs they carry me back to moonrise,
they fly with me to the sun…
Sometimes they saturate me in favor,
other-times they sting me to death…

I must give them credence
for they have the power to hurt me beyond recognition.
I must let them out
or they will hold me hostage.

I will release them as tears, to spring forth from the deep
and go back to where love overflows…

I can’t catch my tears or hold them,
they must fuse with the ether
and return to heaven,
to be gathered and kept forever in jars,
until I too shall return…

They are my memories,
they come from my inner being
and like floodgates opening
they water arid lands of sorrow …

And for just a tiny moment I will wallow in pity,
I will cry out at what has been lost,
Yet I will still bathe in the beauty of what is…

I am forever hoping to be emptied of the sorrow
that lives inside me…
But I know my tears must return,
for grief must speak volumes
otherwise, love would not be visible…

Untethered shores…

“what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

I’ll take a boat
to anywhere
just to sink this sorrow
and drown despair.

The air has been heavy
with what could have been,
the nights are dark
with desolate dreams!

And though my words
still know their rhyme
unforgiving memories
screech out of time…

In quiet utterances
of sun and moon,
some have said
you were gone too soon,
but lifetimes
were written
into holy memoirs,
and Time Lords
inscribed your name
in the stars.

In faraway galaxies
on untethered shores,
I still hear the echo
of angelic applause,
And the quiet lapping of eternity,
reminds me that
you are
endlessly free..

©AllysoAlly2021

Sowing tears..

“Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.”
-Psalm 126

The sun set
on my tears,
the moon rose
in my eyes,
my bed was soaked
with sadness,
the cosmos
heard my cries…

Pity me not beloved
for I’m favoured
with the belief,
that courage
will always find me
and sanctify my grief!

The darkness
caressed me softly,
holding me in sleep,
sowing my tears
of sorrow,
that joy
I’ll surely reap..

a bright sunbeam
awoke me
into a new day,
with songbirds at my window
chirping that it’s okay..

So I planted my tears
in the morning,
with words
that must be said,
and I watered grounds
of uncertainty,
that faith
will gently spread…

©AllysoAlly2021

Distractions…

“Your body is woven from the light of heaven.”
― Rumi

In the agony of what seems lost,
there’s a light
that is invitingly soft…
If I move willingly into its core,
will my mournful breath be restored?
Will it hold me when
I cannot stand,
ever so tenderly take my hand,
and walk with me into distractions,
where fluency
is carefully imagined,
so that every fragment of my marrow,
turns my grief into something hallowed..
that when my tears
become lakes,
I’ll dive into evolved states,
and swim forever in cosmic seas,
and be gently comforted
by eternity..

I reworked this piece and it reminded me to keep moving into light…

©AllysoAlly2021

Holding a space…

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
[Matt 5:4]”

I feel as though I have landed in a terrible place of sorrow again,
my body aches with it, but I’m letting it be….

Two friends of mine have passed away within a month,
and not from covid…
It’s a heavy toll.
I wonder sometimes how much grief one can bear in this life,
does it accumulate?
Does the heaviness stay in our bones and bleed out when triggered?
Circumstances surrounding the death can be a catalyst
for the most terrible kind of sadness,
like when someone decides that they can’t live
on this earth plain anymore.

I have watched for three and a half years as people
lose children in many different ways,
be it by still-birth, suicide, cancer
and a multitude of other reasons.
It seems by far the worst kind of loss,
and it can be made more complicated by so many factors.

With a beautiful support group, and being able to share my worst pain ever,
I am able to see light and to even to touch it.
I have been able to bring myself into a place of serenity and beauty,
and to see those departed souls as perfectly exquisite beings of light.

It took time though and intention to find my way out
of the most awful heaviness.
Sometimes it takes bearing my soul, speaking out my regrets
and even reaching down into the heart-break,
At times it takes letting my heart be completely ripped to shreds.
I cannot hold this kind of sorrow inside me,
I would not be honoring those
who are no longer here, if I did,
nor would I be showing myself loving-kindness.
 
You don’t just get over it,
so, right now, I’m holding a space for mourning, for sitting in the pain.

I realize how hard it is to be here on this earth right now,
especially in these times, when so many lives
have been impacted in different ways.
It has separated many and being isolated brings
an even greater intensity of sadness…
a profound grief.

The trace of those who have touched our lives,
the substance of them
lingers forever
locked away in our hearts,
until one day we see them again,
in their wholeness…
In the last year there have been many losses
and not just because of covid.
It’s as though there is “a checking out” of many humans.

I vow to keep the faith,
love as much as is humanly possible
and always be ever so gentle
with myself and others…

and keep watch for the beauty that surrounds me,
even when it is hidden in dark places!

©AllysoAlly2021

Rescued again by butterflies…

“It is better for the heart to break, than not to break.”
― Mary Oliver

I buried a scream once, behind my brave face, but there is always a reckoning, a sliding out of unbearable pain, like a dark thing that ambushes me when I least expect it.

It comes quickly with full force and drenches me to the bone in sadness, the ache is like a thunder-clap to my chest, my throat becomes clogged and choked in despair.
This monster entangles me in self-pity, it is a living thing, it worms its way into my flesh, crawling over my skin, burning me alive, tormenting me. For a time I am lost to its will.  
I sink into the graphic rawness of grief, no longer able to float above the heartbreak. I’m weighed down, leaden and gloomy.

A force greater than me allows this hurt to burst its banks, enabling my broken-heart to be exsanguinated…

I’m learning that it’s best to let it run its course, until I am rescued again by butterflies…

©AllysoAlly2021

The colors of their gentleness…

I gathered my strength
among flowers,
drinking of
their superpowers,
And when I was
too weak
to stand
I spread my grief
over radiant lands…

And the colors of their gentleness,
bought me back
to a sweet caress
of everything
that’s known,

Allowing my tears to overflow… 

©AllysoAlly2020

Love always stays…

Charting the aspects
of what it means
to be alive,
I visit sites
where I barely
survived…
praying my heart
can translate
the pain,
I’m broken open
and shattered
once again..
my soul laid bare
in disorderly praise,
I’m always grateful
for the love
that stays…

©AllysoAlly2020

Grace intervenes…

There’s a sadness that lives
inside me,
in unspoken words,
with no remedy
no antidote
no gentle return…

to a hoped for normality
of lucid breath,
there’s no glory in the cruelty
of unexpected death…

Even happy events
won’t erase the pain,
sometimes grief’s moods
cannot be explained…

And life goes on without me
like an ever-flowing stream,
and I hold onto those moments,
where grace intervenes…

though the longing remains constant,
in the quietness of my mind,
unspoken,
unanswered,
needing a world that’s kind…

©AllysoAlly2020

Elysium…

“We’re all just walking each other home.”
― Ram Dass

I got lost in sadness with no way out,
my heart was filled with terrible doubt,
I could not feel my inner glow,
the land was distant
the lights were low…

In dense air, my breathing dimmed,
disorientated by
unforgiving winds…

Doubt grew thicker
I could not see,
the fog muffled my desperate pleas…

Only light could save me from despair,
in the guise of tender loving care…

I’d slipped into pits
of unbearable pain,
I knew these wounds
were preordained…
and tears must fall and grief must be,
to bring me back to sanity…

and the time will come when I revisit sorrow,
maybe next month,
maybe tomorrow…
but my hope is that every earthling knows
that a Mother’s heartache is a dreadful blow…

that my body weeps, as it should
all I need is to be understood…

to visit lands where grief is allowed,
and reach beyond these temporal shrouds…

to see horizons gleaming with hope,
and set my feet on Elysium slopes…

©AllysoAlly2020