Thursday 16 July 2015

In the forest of my soul, I...

... Stand.
A tall tree, struck by lightning.


The damaged side shows 43 year-rings,
The other 51.
For 8 years I have grown and bloomed,
On only one side.
How can this be?
How did the lightning not kill me?
It deadened the right side of me,
It took my speech,
And for a long time, my smile...

But, the lightning didn't reach my roots,
The very essence of me remained sound.
And so, I lived and breathed, 
As half a tree.
And as my roots grew deeper
To connect me to Mother Earth,
I grew stronger above ground.

My trunk expanded,
My branches thickened,
My leaves grew lush,
And my speech returned.
Slowly, I learnt to listen
To the dead side of me,
To let it speak of its pain,
How lost it feels,
Of how the lightning robbed it.

And now, I'm growing around it,
The dead part of me.
And now, I'm embracing it
As part of who I am.
Now, in the forest of my soul,
I am standing tall,
As the tree the lightning hit.
And my leaves rustle 
My own unique song - 

Half-dead to be sure,
But fully alive and blooming
To the rhythms of the Seasons:
In Spring, I blossom,
In Summer, I am full-blown.
In Autumn, I change,
In Winter, I retreat.
And in Spring, I blossom again.

In the forest of my soul,
I stand tall.
I am the tree
The lightning hit.








4 comments:

  1. I really like your poem.
    My husband and I see trees like this on our walks. Sometimes, they may even be partly on the ground, and we are amazed at how hard they try to survive. We should learn from this!

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  2. Simply beautifully written and so descriptive of your experience! You are really taking hold of the course and making it your own, friend. Way to go!

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