How often we lay awake in the depth of night with
a longing we cannot place...
In those moments when the veil between worlds
thins, we reach for our Beloved.
The divine spirit that lives in those we love and
within ourselves. In the stillness, we may ache for a far away
friend or mourn the loss of one we have loved. Or maybe we reach, yet again, for the small being
that depends on us for every comfort. And always, we pray for the strength to keep
loving.
Blue Prayer
In the deep contracted night
Again, I reach for you
Arms outstretched
Fingers taut
This meager embrace
Worn and weary
I reach between worlds
With my only heart
Its four-quartered arrow
Pierces the sleepless air
Tender and fierce
Like courage
Like hope
Like love
~
Collage by Salyna Gracie |
Photo by Yuko Ishii |
Salyna Gracie is the director of Red Lotus Dance
Company. She performs and teaches Middle Eastern Dance and facilitates the Red
Lotus SEEDs program which mentors teen girls through dance at her studio in a
small rural town in Washington state. Salyna’s dancing reflects a commitment to
personal growth by internalizing rhythms and expressing emotion through the
body – dancing from the heart. Poetry and visual art continue the conversation
of dance with words and images that dance on the page. You may contact her
through her website 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!~
Thank you for capturing, both visually and poetically, that moment of soulful longing, that often arrives at night, which I imagine all us poets and artists are quite familiar with. I love the concept of the heart as an instrument that reaches between worlds, wrapped in an arrow metaphor. This is a metaphor I am quite fond of, as it is used in so many ancient texts (Greek, Sanskrit) to express the heart's natural tendency to reach beyond itself, shooting outward, toward divinity. Thank you again for sharing, Salyna, and welcome to Journey of The Heart!
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