"Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground." Oscar Wilde

March 01, 2009 candacemorris 3 Comments

tonight, in between spraying my stubborn cat with water to keep her off the kitchen counters, i have a heavy heart.

is there a difference?
mourning for yourself
and self pity?

i am sorry for the child,
sorry for the mom,
sorry for the sister,
sorry for the man.

i am sore and sorry for the tears i have pushed back all day.
i wear my old family tonight.

i am sorry for the woman weeping with her mother,
thanking god for something painful and real.
heat.
hope.
help.

i am bruised and sore for the 14 year old with braces.
recoiling from the too close and too far.
she wants what she has but cannot stop hating it.
her heart got stuck on the 7th floor,
and the elevator door slams shut her future.

i am wounded and weak for his casual detachment.
he is man.
but not ever boy.
he throws things,
mainly tears and baseballs.
he must alone fill the shoes of a man that were too small to fill.


i am so very sorry.
she is 10 and even in words, silent. quiet. sad. unseen.
the silent tear that "hangs inside my soul forever."
a 10 year old somberly confesses that she's had "tough times."
it's a mortal wound,
her tight-lipped request for love.

and to the last.
the lazy miraculous accident,
i can barely look at her.
her white innocence, incandescence,
blinds and scratches my vision.
from her beauty, what can this battered soul amass?
but her, she.
at least with that little one and her miserable accompanist i am well acquainted.

can i mourn them all?
can i be all of them tonight?
i am.
and i don't have a choice.

i submit to the pain.
oh finally.
salty wine and red tears.

some men were lost.
despite severe casualties; we should never have endured.





To golden-haired suns,
Logos and music, blameless joys,
Innocent of questions
And beyond answers.
For I, Solitude, am thine own Self:
I, Nothingness, am thy All.
I, Silence, am thy Amen
-Thomas Merton

in the thicket, enjoying the shade,
candace ruth - the baby.