READY OR NOT

         In the name of the bee, the butterfly, the breeze. Amen  

                                                              —Emily Dickinson

Let the wind sough through the tall pines on the crest of the ridge, where if you were to climb their heights, you’d see the ocean rising and falling like a great beast nestled beneath silvered quilts.

Let the sky be filled with storm clouds, may they offer you billowing thunderheads, and cumulus towers painted in pastel hues approaching sunset, so that you can see the tender colors are also part of the process.

Let the seagulls and vultures scavenge on the wind, turn and drift like flotsam. They too are fugitives of the storm, let them bathe your eye in the soft comfort of memory. 

This is their promise so that the birds playing hide-and-seek, will know that there is more to this darkness than indigo seeking the endlessness of imploded stars.

Maybe the dawn will find you seated among the clouds, or even on the shoulders of time. Remember they are always seeking new forms of expression. It too is a form or prayer. 

Watch the snow falling on clement shores, notice it dance with the surf and sea foam—those frothy herds—the horses of the sea god Manannán, my grandmother said. Charon, she said, mind the penny.

Let the amphorae of grief collected under duress, wedged into cold cellars of the heart, or maybe even dark corners of the soul, be catalogued, emptied and scoured clean. Let them be daylighted.

Think of them as cold storage, containment devices, so necessary at the time. But it’s time to break those jars and let it all loose. It is not a case of Pandora’s box. You will survive it.

No need to curate the past, the outcome is the same. It is a vessel, something you collected, then moved on from. It served a purpose and gave you tools. A hammer, a shovel, and a bell.

However flawed, grief is no longer a question waiting to be answered. Notice how the morning sun strikes the distant ridges dressed in snow light, blinding you with beauty.

Remember, whether you’re ready or not, transformation is at hand.

1/3/23 Write On! Susie Terence

Pádraig Ó Tuama developed a writing exercise called a Collect poem, where the poem becomes a homily or credo. See hymns to swear by. This poem prompt was from a David Whyte poem, Winter Grief.

• OH, WIND