April 16, 2023 by The Tao of Grief

Shimmerings

Right now I feel I am hiding from the blossom as it holds onto the branch but I know it’s out there, I feel it waving, bobbing, whispering to me from outside my window. It won’t be long before I look it in the face and I can hear it calling out to me, look up, look up, look up again and I know I will.

My trees know just what to do just like my clouds and I am gentle white and pink and sometime rippling rose. I hear them just beyond the glass, framing the trees, throwing their colours to sky and I breathe out. I breathe out as if for the first time, I breathe out like the morning when I woke and squealed and rushed and laughed.

And women fussed around me, hair was curled in ringlets and my feet secured in ivory silk. They would hold me up and they did, as they do now and I breathed out. And I was bound up in taffeta as I always would be, strapped in and laced with ribbons at the back. And at the front, encasing my heart, I was held in rich wine velvet, the deepest red because I could never wear anything else, soft and strong, the unconditional love around my tiny form.

And it’s ok I tell myself, and it is. I can smell the fabric, hear its rustle, taste the rose pink lipstick on my mouth and I am there.

Ready to be wrapped in blossom, petals on me, decorating my features, tickling my neck like confetti dropping down. And I shuffled, I clicked heels down our pathway and nestled my boots in the footwell of the car and later, not much later, they moved over ancient stone, disturbing the dust of centuries, the remnants of other women who had walked and stopped and spoke and loved.

And in the echo of those before me I stood, silken and shimmering like something waiting to emerge and I did. I raised my bouquet to the sky and petals fell around us, photons warmed us, like they do and sunlight lit red velvet, lit my face and the scent of blossom filled us up, as if to saturate the day in certainty and it did and it does.

I’ve been hiding from the blossom for a while now but today I peered back outside my window, took the deepest breath to drink it in. It’s all ok, it whispered to me and I heard it. It reached me, saved me yet again. The wisdom fluttering down through years, curled and chaotic just like me, but it will settle, rest itself soon and nourish the soil beneath my trees. I’m drenched in petals and confetti yet again. Thank God my flowers know just what to do.

March 26, 2023 by The Tao of Grief

From Where the Birds had Flown

I wonder if the tree is still there in the churchyard where I took the pine needles in my hand while we walked? I wonder about the soft threads in my velvet leggings and whether they’re still on the planet somewhere or if they’ve biodegraded by now. And 7 Seconds played on the car radio, in a car that by now will have turned to nuts and bolts.

I think about the bench in Bruton Park and if it still exists or has it been chopped up and turned to firewood and the metal smelted down. I wonder what happened to the the cages in the nature reserve where we wandered, how even now I can taste the still air and hear the leaves under our feet, in the strangeness, in the almost stagnant places from where the birds had flown.

And what happened to the white ceramic bowl with the first of the chicken salads, did it break years ago, is it fragmented in soil, mixed with mulch, feeding roses somewhere I’ll never know? And what about the settee with its soft green Fleur De Lys pattern, with the nap I felt under my hands when my eyes closed, have those fibres disintegrated by now?

I still hear the reliable tick of my parent’s mantle piece clock, marking time, stroking the moments as though they never ended and though that mechanism has long since been deconstructed, the echo of it fills my ears now.

Of course, I wore red socks and my silk waistcoat was shimmering black. I wonder if its small buttons are sewn onto something else now or if they sit in someone’s sewing box, someone unaware of the role that they played in my life.

I wonder about the birds that had flown, whether they had chicks, and whether generations of them later, they fly over me in a different town, dropping feathers onto the new pathways that I make now.

I look out for them. It’s March 26th, I’m not bothered, it’s only time.

March 15, 2023 by The Tao of Grief

Der Blaue Reiter

I’m careful with myself today as though I’m a blue glass horse like the one I had as I child and I’ve just turned up in a small box, packed with polystyrene to keep it safe.

I remember the thinness of its legs, how I could see through them and if I lifted it to my face and pressed it close to my skin, all the world was cool and and hued in blue. I never named the horse, it didn’t seem to need it. It was mine to ride in the middle of the night when no-one else understood me, but he did.

And it was always male, always strong, he always understood me and I’d pull myself up by his mane and clamber on. We’d ride, it would take me out across the fields, always jumping hedges with no care and I would ride as though I was born to have a horse beneath me, feeling his warmth and strength against my thighs. In the middle of the night with my hair streaming out in chaotic ribbons behind me, rippling in the darkness like the ink blue clouds breaking dawn.

There was a sense of being edgeless, without walls to bind me when I rode, timeless even, almost formless, just the presence of his warmth beneath me and the shimmering hold of the night.

Afterwards, I’d place my horse back on the windowsill and rub my legs, how cold they were, how thin but I’d escaped myself just for a while. I’d turn my blue glass horse to face the window, always looking out, always focussed on the places he could take me and today I am so careful with myself. I note the places where I’m chipped but the light still shines through me and if I rest a while longer I will get beyond this windowsill where I seem to live.

And on the blustering wind the words seem to come at me through at the window, ‘don’t drop me, please don’t let me break,’ they say. They rattle the glass on this spring day calling autumn, in this muddled mess of seasons where I live.

I am careful with myself today, so lift me up and hold me close, watch the world turn to blue again. And if we’re quiet in the middle of the night, we can charge through the fields, we can kick up the earth, feel our muscles light up in the moonlight.

I am careful with myself today, I am my small glass horse. I am blue, fragile but the sun still shines out through me.

February 15, 2023 by The Tao of Grief

Day Tripper

To the woman in the trench coat on the bus, with longer, thicker, darker hair like I used to know, you will be fine. And I watch her from the back seat of the bus, years away from her but she doesn’t know I’m there.

And if I stood up and wobbled with the motion, if I plumped down besides her and took her hand then she would jump. And she’d wonder who the older woman was as I leaned in and whispered in her ear. But she doesn’t jump because she cannot see me sitting there. And I push the hair back from her ear and whisper ‘you’ll be alright’ but she cannot hear me because she’s rushing. She’s stumbling up to A & E while her young boy is at Primary and I watch her hurry as I walk behind her and I know the things that wait for her behind the heavy doors.

And if she could sense me, she’d look behind her and wonder why the older woman followed but she wouldn’t stop to question because there was no time.

And I watch her as the doors to A & E swallow her up whole leaving nothing but the memory of her rushing through. And I’m waiting to take her hand and squeeze it tight, I’m ready to catch her when she faints as she will do and as I cradle her younger body into my arms I’ll stroke her forehead and tell her she’ll be alright as we both rest there on their sterile scrubbed white floor.

And if she could hear me, if she could look into my eyes, she’d not believe me but I hold her close and keep her warm. She scatters into tiny pieces and I’ll call out her name. I’ll make everything alright for her because it will be, in a way she’d not imagine, if she could only hear me and if she could see my form.

To the woman in the trench coat with longer, thicker, darker hair like I used to know, I promise you, believe me, you will be fine. And somehow, somewhere my words will reach her and I’ll never ever leave her side.

October 14, 2022 by The Tao of Grief

My Golden Ratio

I will allow myself to wear red again or so it seems, in this image, on that day over there, in the corner of my mind. But if I’m honest with myself and I do need to be, it’s not in the corner of my mind, it’s in-front of everything I do, it’s loud and daring on my kitchen floor and I have unraveled today.

I’m waiting for the leaves to turn a little more, waiting for the soft ageing to calm me down, let the golds and umbers settle me, let vermilion still my mind. But it’s not yet.

The hawthorn outside my window is hanging on to summer, its leaves are glossed and green but the berries have started to burst through. I can feel the blackbirds watching, grateful for the abundance, for the ease of finding food.

They lived under my eaves through spring and summer, I used to hear them rustling and scratting in the dark above my head. Sometimes at night when I woke, when I couldnt settle myself, I’d hear them move around and I’d call out.

I’d call them birdies and would whisper soft into the darkness, go back to sleep now birdies and they would and I did too.

But now they’ve gone. I just hear silence in my eaves but I know they’re still out there, keeping an eye on my tree, eager for berries, waiting for the lush firm fruit to fill their beaks.

And I wait too.

There’s such a tension, like something humming at my core, some necessary essence waiting for its turn and this morning it burst through.

I have calmed a little now, regained some poise and quietness but this morning I changed my ways.

I charged out through the grey autumn, unfurling and stretching out as though there was no resistance, as though there was only joy.

And in my unraveling I booked tickets to the show and then my mind wandered up the street, past the estate agents, past the army museum and the old red brick walls I knew so well, walls that I knew from an earlier time, when I was chaotic and free. And so this morning I walked that route again, past the Hotel du Vin but then I stopped.

I found myself able to do anything so I paused and went through their doors, I looked at rooms and made choices and in my haze and daze I found a suite. And how perfect it was with patio doors that lead out to its own private garden and that would do nicely I thought.

And there draped in red, in russet maybe, nothing harsh or emboldened but a softened red of ageing, of wisdom, of a maturity to hold myself up to the light. And there in my russet awareness I almost booked the room. And I would have added dinner of course but stopped just short of that.

And then the winds danced at my window and pulled me back inside away from the streets I know so well, away from the memories of purple curtains and the swirling depth of wine. Days merged and frayed, moments hanging like the leaves that need to fall, like words dropping onto grass, like footsteps on cobbles, Italian streets when I wore cream linen and the golden light through their windows which rippled across and stopped time.

And somewhere in autumn, in the fracturing moments of myself, in the scent of the Sistine chapel I burst through, from there to here and out and onwards, upwards, outwards to another day, another time, when I would allow myself to wear red again. To wear russet and flow, to sparkle and drift through streets with no resistance and in the overwhelming colours of possibility I almost booked a room.

I can breathe again now, memory and fantasy have merged and drifted down. I’ll be alright soon. I do think so much of wearing red though, of being delirious autumn trees in sunlight, of not being afraid to shine.

September 18, 2022 by The Tao of Grief

A Womb of My Own

I grew a seed,

embedded and safe,

charged with potential to be.

I swelled like a spring fruit,

nascent and sun-blushed,

full of juice and tender flesh.

I stretched and sustained,

moulded and flowed,

an insistent present tense.

I blossomed into autumn,

round and lumbering,

a pulsing pod of blood.

I reshaped as the shell, the outer husk,

fierce and ferocious,

fighting tooth and claw, protect my form.

Until I became,

I separated, split in two,

into us, our necessary cells,

an ecstasy of emergence,

bleeding and bonded and whole.

I flooded into his immaculate mouth

as lilies opened in my heart.

September 6, 2022 by The Tao of Grief

Pigments

Sit down beside me, here on the floor and bring your palette and your paint.

Take my feet and cover them in sap green so that they merge with the undergrowth, with the things that spread out and take root. So that my toes wriggle in the earth and feel the soil seep in-between them.

Take my legs and cover them in opera rose, let the paint coat my limbs like a small girl’s tights. And she doesn’t care about the luminous colour because she’s bright and loud and free. Colour my legs until they run helter-skelter down the road with no concerns.

Take my abdomen and cover it in alizarin crimson, remind it of when it would flow, when blood signalled life, when it held and it pulsed and became.

Take my breasts and cover them in cerulean, calming and restful, a soothing blue to feed and sustain, to remind them of the nurturing. Paint them and feel oxytocin flood.

Take my face and cover it in brilliant yellow, let it be vibrant and glow so that it lights up the room, so that rays burst out in sunshine.

Take my hair and coat it in orange lake deep so that I look like a punk, so that I look like I used to when my hair was short and spiked, when I wore a zebra print dress and didn’t care.

And my orange hair will spill out across the floorboards in rivulets, ideas and plans and possibilities tumbling out, soaking the wood with unbounded thoughts and dreams.

Take your palette and your gouache and cover all this grey then wash your brush out in my water and sit beside me on the floor.

August 31, 2022 by The Tao of Grief

Blackbird

First the pitiful candle,

the book not quite open.

Leaves they fell silent.

I made a pie.

Little whisps of hair-like steam

freed themselves

up through the ceramic beak of my blackbird.

With all the clean cells in-between us.

The steam spiralled up,

muted,

like the words we didn’t say.

I shuffled where my feet cleaned the floor,

the pitiful stone

where I danced for someone else,

who resonated,

who paid more attention.

August 16, 2022 by The Tao of Grief

Cumulonimbus

I need to find the smallest of words, seek them out and hold them close. I must be careful though, holding them means I must lift my arms and that seems too hard. So I’ll just think about them instead.

I’ll think about stillness and sleep, that’s all. The rain came back today and with its soaking, it washed away part of me, took my feathers and my frills, drenched my ribbons and wet my bows and I’m bedraggled. If I looked up I’d see them, sodden, lying around me but I won’t open my eyes. I still think about them of course, crave them, remember how it felt to move and jingle and shimmer and shine, but not now.

The rain came back today, it saturated me. There’s almost a breeze but not quite. I’ll just sit still for a while and if I breathe soft and slow, if I look down, no-one will know that I am here.