So lovely - my colleague, Marla Faith, sent this to me yesterday. She lost everything material in the flood and still manages to create beautiful things on a daily basis. Including this poem.
After the great flood of May 2
the support and love of the universe is
throwing flowers upon my footsteps
opening doors on sunlight streaming
in on me the invisible angels are here
kissing my forehead with healing balm
Mother earth father sky and I,
the ether in between
the damp and dark run out
and clear air returns
The fullness of this life
is bigger than the body
or the home we cling to
The fullness of the Spirit
is our true home
So why grieve over the house
emptied by the flood to a few
sticks holding it up?
'Twas a skeleton we filled with
what we thought we were
And when all the stuff is washed away
what remains?
When Spirit is freed from form
it is still Spirit
The car that became my private billboard, an extension of myself
had the same end as my collection of books
under muddied waters
Yet I remain
untethered to these things of which
I'd grown so fond
And too, my loves will one day leave
their physical forms
I myself will say goodbye to this body
Yet what remains is bigger and more real
for those who see
Spirit inhabits and is beyond habitation
Love alone is real
only this Essence abides
2 comments:
wow. I love that. I think it would be really nice to pair with Anne Bradstreet's "Upon the Burning of our House" next time I teach it in the Am. lit survey. Sometimes I think it's hard for the students to sense the struggle that the poem embodies, or to imagine what she must have been experiencing. Do you think she/he would mind if I used it?
What an awesome idea, Maura. I love that Bradstreet poem, too; just discovered it this fall and taught it for the first time.
I will ask her - I am sure she would be more than fine with you using it.
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