my mother broke some ribs yesterday
My family the original one
Not always whole, we struggle
From fundamentalism and displacement
But we are growing older the barriers built
By judgments, false beliefs, heart wounds
Broken up and open in the care of our parents
Dad now 90 Mom close behind, they are living long enough to see
Us come together, anger. fear, projection all swallowed in the small actions of love.
Yesterday is dead and gone
for which I am deeply grateful
I feel washed, raw, scrubbed
death to resurrection
got a front row seat
but my game is more like
a slow walk than a slam dunk
sometimes this teach-me-to-pray
place is more like grade school
my 5 year old grandson Sam
taught me that you pray sitting
cross-legged on the floor
closing your eyes, holding
your hands lotus-like and
getting very very quiet
who would have thought after
all the sermons prayers
I was given from birth,
that Her voice whispering to
me in the deep woods
was actually prayer even
though i never said much
this morning at the coffee
shop called Baked, I am
but now I know that love
is often soft spoken
sometimes Raw and
sometimes Baked
This is the girl
Who could not stay
Home could not
Deflect their anger
Let it push her out to
The Woods behind
The parsonage
To the trees that
Hold her gently she
Goes to her fairy stump
Lays in their midst circled
In the protection of her tree kin
Tall and powerful and hers
She wonders why she is a person
And not a tree under their wings
She feels God bathing her
In light Motherly and warm
She hears the voice of the
Grandfather pines
Wind whispering they say
Believe, keep moving and tell
Your stories, read everything
And though she’s only in kindergarten, she
Already reads everything and
Knows these evergreens are wise and right
Deep inside herself is the heart
Of everything, and that room she calls peace
In there survival manuals are everywhere
She falls asleep and dreams the fairies that dance
On the stump that is her forest home.
Poet Jude's Poetry 