This morning
I walked to the shops
and as I did, no bombs fell
Later I drove to the school:
my children, they were alive and well
And on coming home,
our house, it stood there still
And I have got to find a way
Of feeling the grief
Without becoming lost and drowning in the shame, the horror;
A way of facing the pain
Without being blinded by its depth, and choosing to invent some other
More comfortable reality to see.
Because it hurts so much.
I have got to find a way to function
In my daily life as it is now;
To allow when parts of it cause me sadness, despair, anger, grief, loss
Without invalidating those parts because ‘I am so lucky,
How dare I be anything other than constantly happy and grateful’
And equally to let my happiness and delight, my joy and gratitude
Not be tainted by the shame of feeling so when others are living in terror,
Are killed from greed and fear and hate.
And I have got to find a way
To stand in this vast river of anger
Not be swept away unrecognisable, or subsumed into bitterness.
I have got to stand in it and find a way
To live,
To channel it into passion for positive change, into acts of love
I have got to find a way, right now,
Not to sink into apathy, in overwhelm
At the suffering and my own powerlessness,
And apathy, in its numb isolation, is calling me now, I admit.
The pain is too much, the grief is too strong
To step into.
Yet there is a healing in there
Somewhere, I know.
I know that to choose not to look away,
If bearing witness is all that I can do in this moment,
That, that affirms we are one,
Connected in the intensity of a collective reality
And that acknowledgement is a step towards a world of peace.
It is the unacknowledged that leads to such destructive acts,
To the sickening distortion of the shadow side.
What is done by one is done by all. We are one people.
However often we are sold the lie that we are not.
Hence the grief.. Hence the shame.. Hence the pain..
Struggling at my door. I need to meet them
With some kind of messy grace, some divinely messy, ragged offering of love.
I have got to find a way to believe still in the goodness of our race, to know
The human spirit is a vehicle for hope, and transformation.
I have got to find a way
To trust when she says:
‘We were made for these times’.
Nell Aurelia 