Being here today is so painful
I can hardly breathe.
My body is wound tight,
Pain runs through it in waves
I sit on a chair
and wait for the breath to come.
It arrives like the sea
Filling up rock pools,
As the tide floods
Mapping points of acceptance and resistance
As it makes its way in.
Each breath brings grief
That seems bottomless,
Grief and breath arriving together
Requiring me to be here,
Demanding presence.
Every inbreath deep suffering
Of abandonment, of loss.
Surrendering to pain in the body,
Descending into the place of no protection.
Nowhere to go. In and out,
Holding, then releasing into the pain,
Releasing the pain into the beyond
Bathed in grief I emerge
Knowing it’s all just a breath away
Trusting it’s the pathway to
The mystery
That holds all of this
Beyond pain and grief,
Beyond life and death.
I can be at home
In this very moment