All the ways you tried

I see it now because my heart is clear

All the ways you tried

All the ways you loved

And how hard your young life was

And how little comfort you found

There was much more to you

Than just being my mother

You knew great loneliness

As I have

Yesterday I danced the pain

The pain you could not express

But is my hearts pain

And with me in the dance were those who have passed

As I danced

I remembered deep in my soul

The sorrow of loss

But also the beauty of their presence

Shadow presence of Poppa hovering

Black hat black tie standing in the rain

The lovely one I never knew

And was too young to remember

Feeling only

Ghostly imprints in my soul

Casting shadows of fear over each new relationship

In my heart

In the dance

I felt the love that was lost

And I felt the anger that covered over the pain of knowing

That coming into the family toward the end

Meant I would have less

Less holding

Less comfort

Less connection

Less of the cosy jumper

Instead I lived to see Pluto trample in

And steal everything

In hob nail boots

Until only injury sorrow and emptiness

 Lay around us like wreckage

Leaving those of us who remained

Inconsolable

Barren

Cast into the wilderness

I went numb for so many years

I was the lost soul wandering

Like Lilith forced out into the dark

To find my way

Through a burnt out landscape

Littered with glass shards of sorrow

Feet were cut and bleeding

After frenzied dances

How my soul ached

With things that could never be spoken

And so in time my vision blurred

And my heart became a beast of hurt

Pumping heat and fury

Between the time lostness and tears

So much emptiness and fear

And others feared getting too close to me

In case they were burned

But the burning was all a part of the process

For a heart’s fire that is loved

Mysteriously transforms into something else

When there is enough trust in the dark

Bringing a dawning into life

Of the healing light of tenderness

Birthed from agony

Light that streams down upon me

In the dance

As love rises up

And swirls

So much love

That I fear my entire being will burst with it

And so, at the end

I see all the ways you tried

All the ways you loved

And all the ways that for so many years

I sadly could not see any deeper

Than my own hurt

And so often

Pushed others away

With an anger

That hid so deep within it

A longing for connection and love