I am careful, so careful, deliberate in every moment. I am instinct dancing, seemingly in the air, hanging by a thread. My actions are encoded in the finest hidden particles of my form, conducting my every delicate movement. My limbs shine in the sun as I dance my creation into being to nourish me, and … Continue reading The Weaver
Don’t mind me, I’m just surrendering being broken calling back all the fragments of me throughout space and time, all the pieces that got lost somewhere, stuck in shock, orphans in stasis, hungry for a mother in perpetual wonder of where they belong. I felt their search for millenia and even made it part of … Continue reading The Seeker
In the wreckage of my heart can I open anyway? In the disaster land of the aftermath of choices can I open anyway? In the rubble of decimated villages ravaged tribes pillaged body can I open anyway? Lying on the ground bleeding from takers conquering can I open anyway? Can I open to be torn … Continue reading To Be Torn Open
Sometimes I see forever before knowing if I can make it. Sometimes life falls apart like clumps of dirt held tightly in my hands. Will I be scattered on the wind this time, like the spokes of a wishflower? The force of air and spit from a mouth thrusting me into the unknown? Or will … Continue reading Molting
I. The sun peeks through hazy sky and she looks beautiful in grey and gold. She is like that sun persisting through the blanket of clouds that threaten a distant storm but haven't gathered enough water yet, not today. She is not striving to rule the sky, and she can't see it yet, but she … Continue reading The Sleepy Sun and Her Starry Friend
Welcome to The Flipside, to The Upside Down. Here, everything is as it should be. Here, we live inside dark clouds. There is no sun in here, no days full of light. Here the shadows are more than echoes of a past we try to fight. Here there is no floor firm under your feet. … Continue reading The Upside Down
I. My body is a microcosm of the earth, raging against invasion, depletion, destruction. Scars are blocking my guts, like damming up the Amazon River when 70% of our medicines come from the jungle it feeds. Some things just need to flow or the world suffers. Tribes have survived deep inside the forest, keeping the … Continue reading Life Giver (Pacha Mamma Gives Birth)
Vultures pick the wounds clean. Clarity comes through whispering trees. I am still, and listening. Copyright © 2018, Sheyorah Aossi Art: Stillness by Joyce Huntington.
This image is a still from Becoming Who I Was, the film this poem is based on. It is a documentary about a child who was a Rinpoche in his previous lifetime, and is displaced from his home in Tibet due to reincarnating in a rural region of China. He must travel, with the help of his elderly guardian, from a village in wintering China, through India, to Tibet, in the hopes of being reunited with his disciples who must claim him in order for him to fulfill his purpose for reincarnating. But Tibetan borders, as we know, are blocked and heavily guarded. I highly recommend the film, for the moving story, and for the stunning photography. And now the poem.
Poet's Notes: This was written in response to a journal prompt by Pixie Lighthorse from her book, "Prayers of Honoring Grief." The question was: How can I honor what I've been through?
