A poem about longing to keep things we cannot seem to hold onto.
Longing to Gather
I long to gather up all the things I love so dearly
I long to keep them all,
And fear their gradual slipping
Away,
away—
How do you keep the rain?
And the deeply felt sense
of being held, nurtured,
cherished and watered from the inside
That its brings?
How do you keep the wind
caressing every inch of your exposed skin
And the closeness to God that it brings?
How do you keep the waves pulling the sand beneath your feet
With each return to the sea
Exposing it’s longing
for things it too cannot seem to keep?
How do you keep the felt closeness to your origin
When you lay your head back in a calm Caribbean bay
And rest in the oceans embrace—
How do you keep it
As it pulls your body to the surface
And holds you there
For as long as you are willing and able to stay?
How do you keep the kind of silence you hear
When the water just so covers your ears?
My heart bleeds at the thought
And my soul cries out
You must return
You must return
And return I must
It’s true—
But when I can’t
And the longing overwhelms
Making my heart faint
and weary with the thought --
The thought that what is not tangible
Will surly be lost—
It is good to remember,
Time and distance are constructs
That can cause any human to despair
If you return to your body
The body that houses it all
You will find, it’s all right there.
Sometimes making it hard to move on
from things you want to forget—
But also making it possible to return
To the things you never want to lose
You never want to forget.
You cannot lose to distance or time
What is intricately woven into your being,
So allow all that is good
To weave deeply into you
Deeply into you—
You may not be able to return
To a place or a time
But you can always return
To the home that is inside
Where all your experiences are held,
And the love that walks you through everything
Waits for you with a seat by Her* side.
*Please note: I am assigning a gender to love (in general). God is love and embodies all gender. I use pronouns interchangeably in my poetry as I feel led and inspired to do so. Never as a political or religious statement.
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