TWO HANDFULS OF SAGE
(For Dixie -1993)
It is early spring.
The young sweet grass turns the hills pale green.
Last year’s old grass remains stiff and white.
The sky is blue.
The sun is shining.
But the cool breeze blows through me and I feel cold.
I walk.
I notice the direction of the wind.
Surely there is a sheltered place
where I can sit and hide,
where the sun can warm me
and the cold wind can’t reach me.
I find a large squaw bush.
I sit on the slant of the hill.
I keep the bush between me and the wind.
It cannot reach around or through my bush.
I am protected
and the sun warms me.
As I walk,
I pick two great handfuls of sage,
symbolic of the increased intensity of the agony inside.
I cling to the sage tightly
wanting to crush the sadness out of existence
but I am unsure how to let it go or make it go away.
Yesterday I tried to throw my pain to the wind.
I stood on a hill.
I threw my handfuls of sage as high as I could,
but the wind blew it in front of me,
directly across the path I had to walk
to get back home.
I was dismayed!
I don’t want to walk through my pain.
Is there no way around it?
I want to be whole.
I want to be one.
I don’t want to be scattered to the wind.
It seems I cannot pick enough sage.
In the one hand I carry the pain.
In the other I carry my own fragments.
Somehow the enmeshment of the fragments
and the dissipation of the pain
are interrelated.
Could the fragments within me
somehow be clenched together tightly
and become a whole?
Somehow pain and oneness,
agony and strength,
go hand in hand.
I must walk through my pain
to find myself again.
I must walk through my agony
to connect the fragments inside.
I must endure the anguish
to discover my own power.
I cannot disperse the sage alone.
I need to talk.
I cannot gain the strength alone.
I cannot become whole again alone.
I love you sometimes means I need you,
and I love you and need you with all my heart!
You are my sheltered place
where the cold wind can’t reach me.
To the battered children within,
you feel exactly the same way angels feel.
You feel safe!
You are love!
(My Tears Fall Inside, pages 168-171)
(For Dixie -1993)
It is early spring.
The young sweet grass turns the hills pale green.
Last year’s old grass remains stiff and white.
The sky is blue.
The sun is shining.
But the cool breeze blows through me and I feel cold.
I walk.
I notice the direction of the wind.
Surely there is a sheltered place
where I can sit and hide,
where the sun can warm me
and the cold wind can’t reach me.
I find a large squaw bush.
I sit on the slant of the hill.
I keep the bush between me and the wind.
It cannot reach around or through my bush.
I am protected
and the sun warms me.
As I walk,
I pick two great handfuls of sage,
symbolic of the increased intensity of the agony inside.
I cling to the sage tightly
wanting to crush the sadness out of existence
but I am unsure how to let it go or make it go away.
Yesterday I tried to throw my pain to the wind.
I stood on a hill.
I threw my handfuls of sage as high as I could,
but the wind blew it in front of me,
directly across the path I had to walk
to get back home.
I was dismayed!
I don’t want to walk through my pain.
Is there no way around it?
I want to be whole.
I want to be one.
I don’t want to be scattered to the wind.
It seems I cannot pick enough sage.
In the one hand I carry the pain.
In the other I carry my own fragments.
Somehow the enmeshment of the fragments
and the dissipation of the pain
are interrelated.
Could the fragments within me
somehow be clenched together tightly
and become a whole?
Somehow pain and oneness,
agony and strength,
go hand in hand.
I must walk through my pain
to find myself again.
I must walk through my agony
to connect the fragments inside.
I must endure the anguish
to discover my own power.
I cannot disperse the sage alone.
I need to talk.
I cannot gain the strength alone.
I cannot become whole again alone.
I love you sometimes means I need you,
and I love you and need you with all my heart!
You are my sheltered place
where the cold wind can’t reach me.
To the battered children within,
you feel exactly the same way angels feel.
You feel safe!
You are love!
(My Tears Fall Inside, pages 168-171)
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