QUICKSAND by Ruth Calder Murphy

This poem is about life and death, exhilaration and depression…

I wrote it quite a few years ago and it is, in many ways, a sort of autobiography. A reflection of how, if I stop and listen, I hear the sound of Time, marching... And it is my own footsteps I hear, echoing through the years, from physical birth to physical death, my own footsteps, carving out new roads, new journeys, across my soul.

Photography by Katerina Plotnikova

I’ve written happier - ecstatic, celebratory - poems about this journey and these ‘deep’ moments. “Quicksand”, however, represents the no less valid times when the darkness descends and all I can do is listen to the footsteps, and try to keep on breathing, when to struggle is to sink and I just have to hope that my feet will find solid ground before the quicksand swallows me completely.

We all have out own versions of quicksand in our lives. This quicksand, too, is a part of the journey to be embraced and valued. These times are precious, too. We need the night to see the stars and -having survived the darkness- we move forward into a more brilliant dawn as a result.

This poem is for all my spiritual siblings who know the darkness well, and who feel the pull of the quicksand. It comes with hope. We will survive.

Quicksand

Again I hear my footsteps

upon my silent soul

that echo to eternity

and tread from pole to pole.

They chart my every movement

from bloodshed at my birth

to that sequestered moment

when my dust returns to earth.

They pulse through all the seasons,

they thunder in my thought

and rhythmic send my throbbing heart

to where its life was wrought.

When suddenly the silence

engulfs me like a sea.

I slip into the sinking sand

that slowly swallows me.

"The Slow Sink" fine art photography by Heather Evans Smith

Ruth Calder Murphy is a writer, artist, music teacher, wife and mother living in London, UK. Her life is wonderfully full of creativity and low-level chaos. She is the author of one published novel, “The Scream,” several books of poetry and one or two as-yet unpublished novels. She is passionate about celebrating the uniqueness of people, questioning the unquestionable and discovering new perspectives on old wonders. She is learning to ride the waves that come along—peaks and troughs—and is waking up to just how wonderful life really is. You can visit Ruth and view more of her art on her website here, or on her Facebook page. Her latest book is available on Amazon here, and here. 

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