These Years

Each morning, I wake
In a dozen different times and places

Are the fires still burning?
When will the flooding end?
Am I meant to be somewhere now?
And where is Now, anyway?

The sound of a million people chanting
Reverberates through my ears
As I look around at this silent, empty room

The heaviness of the millions 
Who are no longer with us
Those who have met sorrow
Over, and over, again
Weighs down, hard against my chest
A simple breath, a complex struggle

I step outside, in search of a sound
Of a place, that might do justice to this loss
To this fragmented, yet interconnected sadness
Searching for something, or somewhere 
That might just be spacious and brave enough
To hold it, even for a tiny sacred moment

But all I find out here is silence
Is normalcy
Is the creep of the Busyness 
That came Before

I run my finger along the back of my arm
Trying to trace a path, to find a story
To explain where we are now
And what might come next

Part of me needs to make sense 
Of this liminal time and space
In the grooves and textures of myself
The parts that I can see with my eyes, and touch with my hands
Even though I know this story is a felt one

This arm, that just a few years ago
Was thin and gaunt, tired and pale
Skin blistered and painful
Flesh devoid of energy
Bones weak and porous
Yet still holding on
Life reduced to a state of waiting
To see what happens next

As I move through the world
On the surface, I am the same now
You are the same, we are the same
Yet none of us are surface creatures
Not truly, not really

I can’t show you how my heart and mind
Have so fundamentally changed
Over these past few years
Can only whisper to you sincerely that they have
And listen kindly, as you whisper back:
“I know, me too.”

I can’t tell you where we are now
Nor where we’re heading, 
Can only hold you, hold us
And say: “I am here for it all.”