"Me too." ~ Two poems (Hexgram 18, WOUNDEDNESS, and Hexagram 57, THE GENTLE)

In honour of all who have come out of hiding, out of shame, to say, "Me, too" ... a couple of poems, inspired by two I Ching Principles. The first: Woundedness. We who have survived sexual assault have been attacked from the skin to the soul, from our senses down to our sense of being. "Prey Poem" speaks to how we can be marked, left for dead, frozen.

Prey poem

I have never met

a person so afraid.

Like a fawn, she is:

like prey.

Do not move, then:

do not breathe.

Do not pulse,

and do not be. 

The second poem, "Prayer, 2017,"  is what I'm calling a "We, too" poem. The I Ching Principle is the 57th Hexagram, The Gentle. Tending, taming, softening, soothing...we emerge from the freeze and the fear through these merciful practices. May we thaw into warming relation and safety...

 

Prayer, 2017

Haven

for all

where we hold

and are held

May we hold our own,

be held by our own,

giving in, given into,

like living, 

and fur:

a nose and its nuzzle,

a Yes melting in.

Neural serenity

and honour

beholding and beheld;

a body and a being,

entrusting.

May home

be who we are,

one and then together