Oy, I’m in one of those moods again. Maybe it’s because it’s Sunday and I’m alone and I have time to THINK (a gift any wife and mother can appreciate, lol). But I got to thinking about life and about the many hats I put on to get through an average day. It’s exhausting, and when it goes on for too long without a time to regroup, it becomes confusing. And frustrating. At times, I can get so caught up in meeting other people’s needs or expectations that I lose perspective of who am I and what’s important to me. That’s why I like to be ALONE. I can throw all those damn hats into a corner and just be me for 15 minutes or a day. But it’s hard to do. In this busy, overstimulating world, it’s hard to sit back and do a self-analysis, to separate our inner self from that outer self. Not that there has to be a real ‘separation’ of the two since we are whole people, but I mean in the sense of identifying and accepting our core values, our sense of self; our identity. We are many things, a lot of them socially constructed (wife, father, worker, lover, caregiver), but who are we inside? What makes us tick? Makes us happy? Sad? Hurt? Angry? Anyway, these ideas are the core of what started this poem. It’s a little graphic, but looking inward can be difficult and painful. Oh, and the tree image above is the closest thing I could find to the original, more sinister looking one which started this off whole thing.

Rebirth

Like oil,
The shadow of
Your crimson tree
Sprawls across the ground.
Black, poisonous. Deadly.
It’s coming for me.

Your mangled cross stands alone,
A twisted aberration of
Judgement.
Branches creaking
In the wind.
It beckons. I listen.
Do I go to my own
crucifixion?

All my life,
You have watched
My every move,
Disapproving eye catching
All.
No haven or harbour
Could I find to escape.
You waited patiently, expecting me
To fall.

And now judgement.
Now the revealing.
I die so the truth may be seen.
No more faces, no more
Hats.
Just the core.
When my skin is shed,
When my essence pours out
When I see my heart
Who will I see staring back?
She? Her? That one?
Which is the real me?

Everyone watches.
I close my eyes.
The nails drive in,
The sword cuts deep.
Blood is drawn.

Through pain
We come into this life.
Through pain
We are further formed.
Through pain
We are broken.
But then
We are reborn.

 

D.Forde (July 2013)