A refound poem I wrote in lockdown.

19.04.2020

Upon barbed wire she teases captured fleece,

For, forming in boxed wood, perfected snug

And one by one a gauzy pearl awaits the finished fleet,

To warm beneath her softest, nature shrug.

Then scamper, sneak, another creeps the rows,

To stir young cheeps; the sweetest, sanctum song!

Oh tears to driest eyes this helplessness bestows

The torture, sable silk of neck and night so long!

How can I comprehend how natures strength resumes?

She’s singing on the fencepost, free of pain,

And journeys creamy fleeces, downy plumes,

To weave what may soon hold her deepest heart again.

I often walk in the evening

It took a nice meal and a gentle walk to calm my body down

I felt an internal dilation And my nerves formed coherent pathways.

I wandered softly, noticing the bones of my legs. I know now where the doves, that I have seen in the mornings on the shoreline, roost. They cooed and the evening carried all the other bird songs crisply amidst the silence bought about by heavy storm clouds of late May. It should be sunnier days by now. Constant wind and foreboding clouds in the daytime only let up in this earlier evening. I must take these walks more often as without them the weather feels like a pressure on my skin and mentally.

I walked to the sea, and then back to the house I know as home. In front of the house the oak tree has been there, forever. I see it entirely filling the view from my bedroom window. I have watched it more than ever over the past year. Being here again. It has a beauty that I could pray to.

This evening I walked over to the tree, its bark was silver. crust and mantle-like fissures that seemed planetary as my eyes adjusted to the scale. The streetlight, as if asked, gave pale green spotlight. I placed my hands on the bark and leaned in. Memories. Celandines, old Reg and his dogs, playing on birthday bikes, running about with other children on the estate. But then the age and sheer strength of this tree still standing moved me to tears. And my life seemed unimportant. I felt saved.

Darkness

In stanzas without mentioning the L word.

Temple door.

When you or I feel darkness, even in daytime, are we asking for space to enter the experience?

With no time or space, darkness becomes instead - Pressure. a depression.

We are not allowed to step in and rest (or howl) in this darkness. we are unable to rest in the humanity of it all. And yet it is only here we allow ourselves to be purely

..ourselves. explore our pain, our sweetness and our ecstasy. Close your eyes to be reminded of the release.

Forced rhubarb.

Imagine the beauty of being handed all the darkness you need. a cloak in which to roam. Anonymity. It is not the darkness itself that makes us feel low, it is the inability to use darkness for evolution that stops us in our tracks. We live in a half-dark world and yet we do not bask in it. We see it as nuance in film. Flickers, moments. We know those deep bovine eyes. And yet it is stigma.

Encased in dark structures. steel frame and netting of a trampoline, the black line boarder of a cell on a spreadsheet forces the cell to do so much more, to grow its roots in unseen formulas. evolves the spreadsheet. imprisonment, Facts, truth, and bouncing higher than ever. The heart speaks. Cellular.

Front of weather.

Sometimes I talk in class, contemplating and discussing ideas passing through my mind. *even here there is dark delineation.. the structure itself has given me safety in order to explore my ideas.

Today I spoke about

Two opposing forces creating space and change. My minds thinks..Vectors of the body. tectonics.. molten lava rocks. I said without thinking.. ‘this is what creates everything’.

There is a meeting of sadness and joy in the dark. Intensity of holding/clinging on to familiar, nostalgia and believed identity. The Past is moving in. The future is keeping us from sleeping… the endless plans and fears. The Future is also moving in. A front of weather; a storm. When time moves towards itself, we are given no choice but to cry our hearts out, BRAVE the storm, And then let go. Softness follows. Time moves linear again. We are present in our bodies. We have changed.

Carbon vessel.

I believe change and darkness coexist. The darkness of rot and decay. Char. The words from school ‘energy is changing form’. Often the decay itself brings small beautiful attentive creatures.. the form expands. The thought expands to millions of micro-species. Quiet, essential, life.

What helps me in the darkness is this idea of expansion. It is not only a very safe space to explore, as no one can see it, (I yell again into the dark water of early morning swims. I run with my arms flailing around me at night)… it is essential to the growth of my humanness. So when you say ‘oh ground swallow me up’ the call for darkness has been identified and then we decide ... do I retreat or do I grow.. With my roots firmly in dark rich soil I will throw out my arms, let go and watch the beautiful buds appears along the bones. Darkness could be our greatest weapon when fighting for our humanity.

It is not a retreat. It is not building a shelter in the storm.. it is dancing in the storm.

But what happens if I dance in the storm and get hypothermia and shiver and die? What if my fear overwhelms me!

The Body seems to know the answer. With practice. We let go and we breath…The nervous system responds. Our inner pathways dilate, the storm enters.. Our tear-ducts calm the thunder..

Do not lock the door, here is the moment to ask for nourishment in food and friendship. Loving arms and being held. Here I am. I am taking the time to be with the darkness

So how can ‘little me’ let go in such darkness?

Remember

We were formed in darkness of the womb

The heart exists in darkness.

Essence

We are the dark.