DARK WATERS by Janavi Held

This poem speaks of the spiritual journey I have been on, trying to locate my soul, and find meaning in this world, even with all the apparent contradictions, which abound in this world of the temporary. And the video is a collection of altered images from places I’ve lived or visited.

"Ladies of Rome" by the author Janavi Held 

Dark Waters

by Janavi Held

I went missing in the dark waters of the city

as the streets secretly swallowed me up

and the eroded slopes of buildings

caught my undigested fear

and thereby dissembled my heart.

In that year of shadows

I bore off the helpless soul

still rendered to forgetfulness

she rippled with stunning clarity

in the wake of our well-prepared labor.

And today there is a blush of pollen

ascending from that tower

remarkably cut from the hard wood of living.

This

is a prepared world

helpless

the victim of time

yet with a vast store of dignity

revealing its essence through the geometry of flowers,

it is a deserted fullness,

shadows and clarity,

well attended,

and spinning recklessly lost.

(Click play to hear the author recite her poem) 

Janavi Held started writing poetry and wandering around with her father’s camera as a child.  At the age of nineteen, she began practicing Bhakti yoga. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Goddard College where she studied poetry, photography, and media studies.  She is author of Letters to my Oldest Friend: A Book of Poetry and Photography and in 2017 two of hers poems were shortlisted for the prestigious Hamilton House International Poetry prize and were included in a book titled Eternity. Her poetry also appears in several anthologies that emerged from the Journey of the Heart Poetry Project, to which she has been a regular contributor, and is featured in the Bhakti Blossoms anthology on poetry by contemporary women in the Bhakti tradition.    

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