RAW by Tracie Nichols

This poem wrote me a few months after I spent a 30-minute lifetime on a mountaintop of exposed quartz during the Summer Solstice...

At the time, I thought I was just on a walk with friends. I sat down on a rose quartz shelf to rest. An instant and unexpected collision of woman + mountain + Solstice fire left me stunned, and shaking. My mind rushed in to “make sense of things,” and I walked back into my life thinking the experience was over.

LIFE knew better, of course, and tumbled this poem out of my soul on a grey November afternoon when I realized my life felt deeply wrong.

The feeling, and the poem, propelled me into my current spiritual practice of healing my relationship with our beloved earth - and with myself. Oh, and the mountain and I are dear friends, now.

Raw

my resilience

is so fragile

grief

shreds it

dead leaves

fluttering anxiously

in frigid winds

torn branches

clutch uselessly

holding to

nothing

I’ve lost

everything

in small

pieces

outward

picture perfect

inward such

echoing

emptiness

I found myself out

always afraid

others would see

past the mask

unveil the fraud

I did it

myself

who am I

now?

I can’t do this

anymore

cast-iron competent

face tearing flesh

I can’t do this anymore

I doubt everything

no kernel of redemptive

light

burning

inside

this time

no positive words

trip away

from my mouth

to reassure

myself

everyone

who relies on

I am lost

I doubt everything

(I know I’m in here somewhere)

what a relief

it is

to show my face

to the world

unsure and small

timid

yearning for

mother-touch

despairing

broken

needing

what a relief

it is

to be just

human

woman

Tracie Nichols has written poetry since she was 11 years old. While most of her early works are gone (this is probably a good thing) she continues to scribble poems at odd hours about everything from the state of her soul to the sleeping position of her cat. Her poetic heart mostly belongs to her nature kin, though. ~The rest of her life is an unwieldy balance between teaching and mentoring survivors of abuse, helping them find joy and peace (and perhaps a poem or two) in their own two-way relationship with our beloved earth, and loving her husband, three children and the aforementioned cat. Tracie blogs, shares resources and generally nurtures at 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!~

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