Submission for this week's One Single Impression prompt: movement
Turning the dregs and dung of broken relationship, prima materia, into the gold of unconditional love is the work of dreamers, mystics and alchemists. Glad we all fit into at least one of those categories, or it would be a dreg-ful world.
The poem is what I 'did', or more accurately, what was done to me, this week. Other things were accomplished, surely, but this is the only one that matters.
After
heart embrace with estranged friend
storm surge catalyzed
by mutual grief
and overdue regret
that very night
dreamt
of releasing
bowel-bucket of
many pounds of
marble-sized metal orbs of
unusually large buckshot
relishing the relinquishment
and fairly shouting
"Oh yes, now I remember swallowing them
but they didn't seem so hard then!"
Holy, sacred crap.
Eating buckshot* to be carried in my belly
until the ripe time
to both birth and bury it.
What magnificent fruit might the seed or pit
--the philosopher's stone --
of the detritus of our relationship
bear?
In the ancient alchemical symphony of these two souls
1st movement was rapprochement
2nd movement was distance and distrust
3rd movement, yet to be unearthed.
movement
Just to be sure
I'm also getting a colonoscopy
as we all know
dreams are tricky things.
*Philosophical lead, in alchemy, is a term for prima materia as distinguished from common lead. The term also applies to "unclean body" (metal) that has the potential, through subsequent alchemical processes, to yield gold after its blackness or "corruption" had been purged.
Van Morrison searches for the Philosopher's Stone
Thanks to Don't Take My Wings for this week's prompt. One Single Impression is a community of poets writing and sharing haiku and other poetic forms. Each week new prompts are offered up to our often lazy muses. Come play with us!
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About Beth Patterson
The Virtual Tea House website became 'word-ripe' when, over a cup of jasmine green, I realized that the web has an expanding part to play in the communal aspects of spiritual growth.
With a master's degree in religion, my career spans 30 years in end of life care and child abuse intervention and advocacy.
Here in beautiful Central Oregon, my spiritual homes of the high desert and the mountains are both in proximity. And for good measure, four hours away is Grandmother Ocean and the stunning Oregon Coast.
I'm making decent progress on the goal set by my mother early on: she taught us that the goal of humanity should be to become ever-more eccentric, i.e. more fully human.
Entering the 'forest-dweller' phase of life, I am honored to host the Virtual Tea House for all who wish to explore how our lives are enriched and made new a thousand times each day by the spirituality we embody. Exploring this engagement together is the purpose of the Virtual Tea House.
Welcome! Let's have a cup of virtual tea together and share what brings us joy, what we are being taught by life, how we are leaning into the Big Questions posed to us each day in sometimes 'distressing disguises'.
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http://twitter.com/MyraB