Makers of the Way Forward

Here poetry is a flame in the palm of your hand that warms and does not burn.

Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash

read or listen:

Whether you’re suspended deep beneath the surface of an ocean of grief, or feeling the sure hand of death on your shoulder, it is best to remember that you are a poet.

I know, most people will deny they are poets, but every one of you has always been a poet in the deepest well of your heart. Each of you knows how to sing the songs the soul sings as we blossom our way through this precious life.

Even if we are immersed in grief or in the presence of death, it is time for the lyricism of the soul. This music of spirit penetrates the harshest darkness, reminding us that we are the fruit of a tree with branches reaching beyond all of our lives and roots reaching far beneath time itself. Maybe that feels strange to consider; holding a heart that feels so burdened, so terrified. But these are places where beginnings and endings meet. These are places of infinite transformation. If you are able to be present, you can still feel room to move, still find a way to tend to your wings.

It’s best to be a poet here, which is strange because so many people today seem to have dispensed with poetry altogether. There are no super-hero poets, no caped crusaders delivering justice at the tip of a pen, or solace with a graceful stanza applied with the compassion of a Buddha. Today poetry is an outcast unless it is in service of small music or aphorisms of conditioning that limit our ability to see beyond the horizon, into what really matters.

But here, in the landscape of loss, poetry is a compass, a life preserver, a cup of spring water that never empties and always cools. Here poetry is a flame in the palm of your hand that warms and does not burn.

How have we forgotten that even in the harshest places life has to offer, we have been given the tools of navigation and transformation? We are licensed to speak to the great darkness that may engulf us and conjure what our deepest hearts know must be conjured. We can make our way, we can draw our own maps before a foot has even stepped there.

We are all poets, magicians of the heart, makers of the way forward.