Letting Go

How to truly do
the thing that sounds so easy.
Letting go, I appreciate
that which I release.
Letting go, I mouth the words,
how marvelous
this object, this beloved,
this fixation.

But there it is,
still grasped in my hand.
I notice my clinging to the marvel.
I feel the being of me
wrapped tight around it.
Contracted to a fist,
I feel how the holding
shrinks me.

Inside my secret heart
I hear myself holler:
You must soften,
you should open,
what’s the matter with you?
And the fist clenches,
and I’m packed around the marvel,
knotted rigid in a panic.

I breathe, I breathe.
Sweet air, I beg expansion.
Inside my secret heart
I whisper to my fist:
How fine is your ferocity.
How deeply I admire
your strength and your protectiveness.
Slowly, I caress my fist.

I breathe, I breathe.
Sweet air gives me expansion.
As I caress the fist
that holds fast to the marvel,
sweet air and words bring sky and space,
sky and space and love.
The muscles of my hand
begin, begin to loosen.

I thank you for containing
that which I am letting go.
How well and safe
you’ve held it, ’til now,
the time for freedom and release.
I turn my hand to face the earth
and as my fist
slowly comes undone,

what’s held now drops away.
My hand is open, light.
I turn it around to gaze
at the fruit of emptiness,
at the prize of buoyancy,
at the gift,
the gift of sky and space
and love.

©Susa Silvermarie 2022