For the Sake of the Splintering World

If a baby is held
for the first three months of life on earth,
if a human infant is carried
in the arms of someone who loves her,
from the moment she is born
held close to another body
without ever being put down
for ninety unbroken days –
what view of life might this imprint?
What kind of person
does such a child become?
If a child grows up in a community
where offerings are made in gratitude,
tiny prayers of flowers and fruit,
every dawn, every meal,
every day of her life,
could this child ever forget
she is part of something larger?
Could this child ever
forget to be grateful?
If you did not grow up on Bali,
if you were not held close with constancy,
if you did not grow witnessing
the naturalness of daily thanks,
then simply to imagine it
gives you a path to go back.
Go back to hold the babe you were.
Go back to absorb
the norm of giving thanks,
the ordinary habit
of honoring larger energies.
Imagine the self you still can become.
Belonging can fill your lungs like easy air.
Your poems can start from oneness
instead of trying to travel there.
If you’d grown up in a world
where the pinnacle of music and of dance
was synchronization and unity,
imagine how attuned you’d be to everyone.
Create it now, don’t wait.
For the sake of the splintering world.
let’s grow ourselves up to wholeness.
For the harmony of the warring Garden,
let’s be brave and belong again.
We can take our humble place
as members of the living earth.

©Susa Silvermarie 2024