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IN YOUR HANDS by Alice Maldonado Gallardo

I wrote “In your Hands” during my dialysis treatment…

In 2010 I was diagnosed with a rare disease called Systemic Scleroderma. In 2011 I spent most of the year in hospitals. I was sent home to wait for Hospice at the end of 2011. I was bedbound and very sick.

However, at home, I started to heal with the help of my sister and my son. I took one year of Physical Therapy to walk again. The Scleroderma affected my kidneys and in 2011 I started dialysis. I am now in the process of waiting for a kidney transplant.

I have written poetry since I was 14 years old.  It is through poetry that I can communicate directly from my soul: where I cry, where I heal. Poetry writing has always been my most personal connection to the Divine.

In Your Hands

Nothing can extinguish your light
because you are in the center of the Sun.
No one can trample your flowers
because your garden is everlasting.

You are in the hands of God.
You are painfully immutable,
unreal and eternal.

The dove flies free
even inside the cage.
The water flows
even within the fist.
The air breathes
even trapped in the tomb.

Keep Flying,
Flowing,
Breathing.
You are in the hands of God.
You were never lost.

Yesterday,
Today,
Tomorrow,
in the hands of God.
And those hands
are made from prayers,
silences, laughter,
and love.

Remember your cradle,
return to your birth.
The memories are not yours,
they belong to God.
Only Love
carved in the hearts
remain.

Loneliness is the veil,
the fog imagined.
The mind seduces,
deceives,
abandons you.
But you do not
lose your place.

Do not go to sleep.
Stay awake.
The sun
always
shines best
at
midnight.
"Girl of Sun" by Anna Forestali


Alice Maldonado Gallardo: I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1966, but at the age of 14 moved with my family to Massachusetts. I studied Latin American Studies at Mount Holyoke College where I was a Frances Perkins Scholar. After graduation I attended Loyola Law School but withdrew to pursue other interests. I worked as Assistant Editor and later as Web and Promotion Manager at the University of Massachusetts Press. I have also worked as a real estate appraiser, translator, secretary, substitute teacher, small business owner and web developer. I live with my teenage son in Amherst, Massachusetts. Three of my poems have been published in an online journal: The Elephant Journal. You can connect with me on Facebook here. 

~If you are interested in seeing your poetry appear in this blog, or submitting a poem by a woman that has inspired you, please click here for submission guidelines. I greatly look forward to hearing from you!~ 
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