Pain, the Poet
Those who forgive,
Can they be poets,
For where is the poetry but
In released pain?
Pain, the fire breathing mist
Rising to rain.
Pain, the reddening blood
filling the veins,
The river of the soul.
Pain, the rooting to the sacral tree,
Birthing stories and songs,
Creating new souls out of barren wombs.
Pain, the cries from scattered tribes
Reaching for limbs and branches,
Anything to hold onto until dawn’s light.
Pain, the songs of ancestral curses
Clinging to the cells like webs
To be cleared in spring.
Pain, the dead rooting of loss
Blocking the secret chamber of the heart,
Where peace resides.
Pain, the tenant evading eviction,
Holding truth hostage
From inner sight
And auric brilliance.
Pain, the dirges and the hymns,
The shadows, dislodged and
Transmuted but not forgotten
In the poetry of forgiveness
And the forgiveness of poetry.
©2017/11/07 Barbara Harris Leonhard…