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Trust It is hard to trust when fear leaves your mouth bone dry and your tongue lies locked, words departed and only the whispered prayers of childhood run through your mind rote learnt and repeated like mantras of familiarity Out of nowhere I stumble on […]
We We who were born to shift the fog and clear away old concepts are finding each other We the misfits the lonely, the sad the ones who ached to find their belonging are connecting We the quiet observers who desire something beyond ourselves, who […]
Love
When my bones
are bleached
and brittle
from carrying my stories
I hope to say I have loved
When my skin has sagged,
etched with experience
and rivulets of tears, both
sadness and laughter,
have eroded my face
I hope to say I have lovedWhen my organs have quietly
carried me through this one life
and absorbed its shocks as
well as its synchronistic surprises
I hope to say I have lovedWhen at last I leave this plane
and move on to the great wonder
I hope to find that all
there is, is love
© Tanya Southey
#52words52weeks
Kindred In all the dust and chaos of the universe I stumbled on you Random particles who happened perchance, to be at the same spot at the same time in the vastness of where we could be In all the millions of probabilities and the […]
Fleeting We promised to meet, a pact made long before we were born when we were light in the throws of planning an earthbound journey We promised to meet, a pact made with love long before the movement of tides fated us to drift in […]
Refuge
It was long ago
and memories now
lie within a hush
of petals fallen
to the ground
to nourish the
earth hungry
for beauty
It was long ago
and the music
plays a scratchy
memory of a
needle on a
record going
round and round
to a favourite tuneIt was long ago
and it is now
and needing refuge
I fall asleep with my
head on your shoulder
only the stars between us
can say you are not gone
© Tanya Southey
#52words52weeks
Manifest I was born your angel not in the sense of the good girl but in my role of fierce protector my tiny hands were made to drag you from your fears to save you from yourself and reignite your laughter when you were in […]
Saudade* Sometimes the mists roll in bringing thunderous sunshine and the cicada filled memory of kikuyu grass beneath bare feet, cooling in the summer heat Sometimes the mists roll in bringing Delft blue skies and the clear recalling of the crimson roses in the tiny […]
Truth
You came here without a path
your role is to forge one
for the ones trodden by others
do not belong to you
You came here with a heart
your role is to break it
for the only way to protect it
is not to care and that will
crack your soulYou came here with a belief
your role is to question it
and you will learn that
truth is diamond-faceted
in its complexityYou came here with a soul
your role is to sit quietly
and listen to it,
it is not to find it, for it was
never lost
only hidden in the noiseYou came here with a tribe
who arrived disguised
your role is to love them
and you will find your friends
hidden under varied shaded skinsYou came here
love it
live it
leave it better
than it was before
© Tanya Southey
#52words52weeks
She She who puts herself together with perfection is hiding the secret of her own imperfections; she who steps forward despite feeling “not good enough”; she who smiles through gritted teeth and nods, violently disagreeing breaking inside, acquiescing because she knows she cannot shift the […]
Mercy Give yourself twelve moons start with the fullest point collect all the things you say about yourself, the hardness, the brittle thoughts the lack of kindness, the things you would never say to a dearest friend, but you say to yourself with ease and […]
Lacuna*
If you go into yourself
and find a patch within
that has no graffiti
from others, from them,
from people who love you
and those who do not,
if you go into yourself
and find a field where
nothing is built and no one
has ploughed or planted ideas
what would you write?
If you venture into this
darkest spot where no one
has been, not even yourself
and you were given the pen,
told you can mark yourself
permanently, what would you write?Would you be tempted to write
what everyone expects?
“You are enough” or “love”
or simply “I was here”
or would you find a word no one
has used and etch it in
to flaunt your uniqueness?
© Tanya Southey
#52words52weeks
*Lacuna – a blank space
Blessings I create blessings in my head I send them to my hands and stroke them into your hair I tell you nothing of them for you will look at me with your wry smile and tell me I am way too optimistic This cosmic […]
Horizons Horizons are a calling a nudging to a place that sometimes only you can see far beyond the misty plains, way beyond the wooded hills Horizons beckon and whisper, “Come, just over the hill just beyond where you are at now. There, look, is […]
Iktsuarpok*
There are gentle Spring days
when the air hushes
the chilled land back
from the cold
and the hollow blue, sky hums
to a tune that was written
a million years ago
And still in that peace
we are pulled to the door,
habit and necessity demanding
we scan the horizon,
the gate, the threshold
for the arrival of someone,
someone we have never met
the unborn child, the missed lover
the parent we wanted,
the friends we needed, the ones
we’ve had who have gone aheadRestless, waiting for the pieces
of ourselves to return home
© Tanya Southey
#52words52weeks
* – “Iktsuarpok” – an Inuit word from The School of Life – Untranslatable Words. The definition is “a feeling of edgy anticipation that makes one keep on looking out the window to see if an expected visitor is coming up the path.”
Well There was a time when wells were the only source of water and villagers would congregate and share while drawing life-giving liquid from deep caverns Now we are unaccustomed to coming to the well to slate our thirsts We mindlessly turn on taps unaware […]
Belonging I have survived so much but mostly I have survived myself with a deep longing for true belonging I have survived my need to fit in and do the things that everyone else believes I was born to do I have outlived the fear […]
Ripening
They always told you
you were a rose
delicate pink and blushing
in the morning sun
and yet you did not believe
all that you were told
you held a sliver of an idea
that once reached you
in a vague and distant dream
They dressed you as a rose
and told you to stand in
your sociable elegance
but as you ripen
you know you are peony
you require a cold winter
and a lonely sky
to grow into your fullness
Heavy headed peony
filled with dreams
far from the sophisticated rose
with her ruby buds
you are a tight unfurling
and outrageously
beautiful as you bloom
Choose your location wisely
peonies resent disturbance
and space them far apart for
good circulation
says the gardening manual
Ah, yes you are definitely a peony
Ripening in your aloneness
© Tanya Southey
#52words52weeks
Connection Invisible threads hold us together stitching us through lifetimes ties that cannot be severed roots of energy tapped into emotion transmitting feelings regardless of where we are in the world regardless of time distance or space numbers dialled at exactly the same time identical […]
Transformation We fear that transformation will change us forever yet intrinsically a butterfly is still made of caterpillar cells and has memories of days before it could fly Sometimes a shift is brutal and fast other times change starts in the east a golden orb […]
Space
A Haiku:
Between you and me
wide skies and roaring oceans
the heart knows no space
© Tanya Southey
#52words52weeks
Vellichor The pages are fragile now yellowed and thinned with time but still the stories remain alive and waiting to be read to enter someone else’s life and leave a mark a sigh or second glance even with the faded ink and feathery edges which […]
Prayer Perhaps along the way this word became attached to things you lost your belief in perhaps along the way you lost the connection to the divinity that rests within each breath the part that breathes you the higher you that can seek to solve […]
Hope
Hope is a bulb
under frozen snow
buried, dormant
far from the sun
it believes
unequivocally
that its shoots
will push through
the darkness
It gets that the soil
though cold and wet
will create the urge
to reach towards
the unseen light
and while it may never
feel the warmth itself
at some point
a flower
will send messages
of confirmation
Hope holds faith’s
hand and believes in love
it sees the stars
instead of the night
it speaks to possibility
it nudges miracles
from sleepy hollows
and waits patiently
for the world to turn
© Tanya Southey
#52words52weeks
Mystery The great unknown is all around us yet we walk around all knowing totally right totally entrenched in our meaning making We are locked in our positions our knowingness our absolute black and white beliefs that shape our days and carve us into the […]
Rest This place of letting go and entering the space of being the great – I am the slipping into slumber the trust that you will return even though you have handed over full control to this unseen force unseen but restorative you yourself hidden […]
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