The Shape of Our Grieving

If your heart has been hurting

and your eyes can’t believe it

and your ears feel the burning 

from the lies they are speaking 

And your soul knows the compass

but the path’s unrevealing 

and you're wondering how

this violent world came to being 

And you feel just as lost 

as I feel in the evenings

when the silence of night

gives way to the beating 

of your heart’s constellation

and the hym that it’s singing 

And you feel the tumult 

of the tide as you’re swimming

Against currents of cultures 

dedicated to spinning

the truth

is revolting 

from the lies they are printing

and the ones they are saying 

in the hopes of their winning

on the international stage

where South Africa is stinging 

The world is afoot

while humanity’s clinging 

to the reckoning ball 

that crashed into the house of our being 

Our soul is concussed 

from the force of the swinging 

And I wonder how long

it will take for the healing

of our collective anatomy 

after the reeling

The stumbling is not yours alone

I’m here with you in this feeling

it’s gut-wrenching and piercing

The gaslighting has me begging for air 

and some sense of a clearing 

I just keep saying to myself 

This is a paradigm shift

This is a paradigm shift

This is a paradigm shift

and we chose to be here for the shifting 

This earthquake of utter proportion

is this moment’s wisdom-held gifting

If we stay anchored in love 

while the power hungry keep doing their bidding 

eventually, like star energy turned gold found in the sifting

our devotion to life will unveil what they’re risking 

I don’t know if it will be in time

sometimes I think, we just came here to be witness

of the way we go down as the most blessed of beings

who didn’t know what they had

even though they were told from the very beginning 

I know it feels like we’re drifting

I pray the winds will have mercy 

or at least keep uplifting 

other worlds we can’t see 

because we’re not big enough 

for that kind of dreaming 

But that’s another poem

This one here is to let you know

that I’m reaching

For you 

And for you

And for you 

out there in the expansion of living

you’re not alone

I’m proud of your breathing 

and speaking

and for holding life at the center

despite all of the beatings

I came to let you know that I’m reaching 

for you 

and for you 

and for you

because the paradigm is shifting 

Hold my hand

let’s we pivot together towards life 

and honor death with the shape of our grieving