credit – sonja parfitt

Like many of you, I have been cocooning from public life for many months. It has been hard to figure out what to say. The cross-currents in my head and heart have managed to keep my fingers from the keyboard.

But that is changing, here, now. Time to emerge and start writing. Again. Because this is what I do, and this is what needs to be done. Luckily for me, I have regular gigs writing inside our local women’s prison, which gives me plenty of fodder to jump-start this blog. So here goes – writing done last Thursday to a mixed prompt. You may recognize the first part as being a line from Mary Oliver’s beloved ‘Wild Geese.’ The second part is from Barbara Sher, Refuse to Choose!

Perhaps you, too, have pondered the image of the ‘soft animal of your body’ and considered responding to it in some way. I’d love to see your words.

“Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves… Stick with it. Start now.”

Just who is the soft animal of my body?
Is she the white belly who never sees
light of day, who loves dark chocolate
and feels the quiver of anxiety at the sea change ahead,
that ‘gut brain’ I have come to trust but slowly?

Or is she the soft brain, whose hard shell
holds in protective embrace the myriad thoughts
coursing through the veins of my life, pulsing
alarm while quashing them with the knowing
that I must go on, be strong, reach out, take in.

Perhaps she is the heart of mine that beats
with so much love and compassion for each of you,
for all of us so divided and categorized and walled off
from truth, from feeling, from the very humanity
that will save us all, earth included.

Because my heart does love what she loves
and fiercely – truth, fairness, opportunity,
kindness, compassion, the need to offer my hand
or a hug, to cast beauty
and healing upon these tumultuous times

one circle, one poem, one dream,
one good conversation, one day at a time.

swb
11.10.16