Journey of the Heart

Whole Could it be we each are branches of the one tree? That love is the sap connecting us. That leaf by leaf we are woven as thread into the other, that there is no standalone limb that is not fused somehow into the trunk, and has its anchoring piece. And that the wholeness we seek is both the fullness of the body of the tree, and the completeness of our own individuality shining as a mirror, looking similar but with our points of difference, that together we might make an entirety - our own longings just the shape of ourselves reflected in the other. And to come home to ourselves is something like smiling in the dark across the embers of a fire into another's eyes, skin, face. glowing with the same heat as the dance of flame, and knowing that this countenance that shines is also our own back reflected. Akin in the way that we are all fronds of the same genus of tree, the same plant that lifts its arms, and drops its foliage, each leaf and limb through which the sap runs in spring...

What happens when we are no longer our wounds? A lifetime of subconsciously leading from a gaping place, seeking a filler for that hole. I spent years, decades, with an ache so cavernous I felt fated to a life of underlying despair. I wrote this piece the other day, realizing I do not live, breathe, nor breed that wound anymore. I have worked it to the marrow. I can still access it. Using it for the sharing inside of poetry and prose, but it no longer leads me. Instead, I lead it where I want it to go. A sigh of relief beats inside the heart of this poem to have wrestled that baby to the ground, planted it, and grew a lotus flower out of the thick, muddy waters in which I grew from.  I am not that Wound Anymore by Leslie Caplan I haven't felt this way for a long time This 'landed' in my pelvic floor This rooted inside   a place that can't be shaken I am not wrapped inside or leaking from   my birthwound anymore That gnawing underlying current ...