VERONICA LEE

In the harbor of my longing
is a long and solitary pier,
jetting out to an ocean
of the unknown.

Do I dare dip my feet in?
Practicality tells me my only
option is to dive.

But I am afraid.
What if the ocean sweeps
me away with her courage?

The imagination goes first.
The water is cold and deep
but the weightlessness
of imagination doesn't sink too far.

"Let me experience this,"
I offer the timid resistance.

What is it that I am resisting,
exactly?
An imaginary dive?
And why must the waters be so
cold?

Ah! I'm a California girl and
our ocean beckons only the
brave and thick-skinned.

But - alas - my imagination
carries me to clean, tropical
waters.
And I float in joy.

The harbor, giving room to meet
me exactly where I am, 
waits patiently without
expectation.

The longing becomes irrelevant.
It is only me and the sea
and the warmth of life
cradling me in safe
emotion.

Bliss, wonder, contentedness
and expansion glance 
at the assurance of the 
harbor.
I know I can reach it if
and when I desire.
The longing cleansed by the 
courage of the dive.

My imagination knows how
to swim, effortlessly,
like the sea goddess of 
other realms.
The remembrance tucked away
in misunderstood DNA.
Generations of life and love
and universes beyond
my comprehension buoy
me, enable me to filter the
oxygen from the water, and
dance gracefully on the
waves below.

My mind wonders the value of
such an imagination, but
the sea dancer twirls
joyfully deeper into
clarity and presence.

"You don't even like water that
much," my mind calls out,
"and you're a terrible swimmer!"

Irrelevant!

The dance continues, merging ocean
with air, life with forgetting,
courage with wisdom,
and the wherewithal to dive
​beyond the harbor of my longing.

Inspired from Mary Oliver's poem Mornings at Blackwater Pond 

How long have I been waiting
for something to arrive?

Eagerness for that first solitary step?
Independence from my mother's breastmilk?

Tomorrow would be better.
I simply knew.

Was he coming this time?
Separation from the family triad.
Now two.
Mom and me,
no more breastmilk.
Now toddling.
But what about Dad?

My memories are thin 
and lonely.
The heart strings may have
been cut too soon.

At first, along the journey 
of severing, I lived with my dad.
Hundreds of miles from my 
oh-so-young teenaged mom.
He, himself, in his early twenties.

What did they know about parenthood?
Or the trauma of abandonment
or no more breastmilk?
What?

In the stretch of time living
with my dad, I'm sure I was
waiting for my mom to arrive.

To reunite the bond of
safety and souls.

And she did, but the 
memories are lost.
Only a semblance of
empathy remains.

The shaken triad.

And more waiting.
But Dad would not arrive.
The weekend visits 
tapered off like music
from a passing car.
A car that forgot to stop
to let me in.

So perhaps the waiting 
grew more anxious, 
more intent on a future
painted perfectly in my mind.

Tomorrow, most certainly,
would be better.
I could control tomorrow,
couldn't I?
To shed the helplessness and
loneliness of youth for
dreams manifested.

She told me I could create
anything I wanted.

Magic. At my heart's fingertips.

Vision. Intention. Create.
Seal it all in, sacredly infused
onto the pages of my journal.

My Perfect Guy, right?
He would be the focus of 
my waiting.
Together we could create
our own triad, or more.

Even after we met 
there was more waiting.

The arrival of our wedding day.
The arrival of our first born.
Our second... and the unexpected
arrival of our twins.

But where, exactly, was the landing 
point for peace and joy?
Heartache and suffering weren't part 
of my dreams, were never focused on
for my magical manifestation rituals.

Instead, I practiced waiting for those
hardships to be over.

And then his death. Kids grown.
Love, expectation, dreams, joy,
challenges, all tangled in the 
yesterday of all that waiting.

Now, I find myself waiting for 
my grief to end and the 
​arrival of true contentedness. 

Inspired from a line in a poem by Jane Wong: "waiting for something to arrive"

Let's begin with worthiness.

What isn't worthy?
A human, a thought,
a dangerous act?
My mind divides, justifies
unworthiness with harsh
righteousness.

A murderer... an abuser...
a horrible deed and 
all the crazy thoughts that
lead to acts of violence, 
betrayal, and the 
shadows of humanity.

I want, desperately, to
define, cut, divide with
a noble Michaelic sword.

I feel it in my hands,
but my heart is overcome
by its power.

Righteousness, I insist!
But no - 
my heart emboldens
with courage.
A courage of
unconditional love...
and forgiveness.

Really? 
I almost despise 
that word: forgiveness.

Who am I to fore-give?
Give acceptance before any - 
and all? - acts are done?

I'm not really that strong.

But the courage infiltrates 
my being, and there is a
comprehension beyond
my critical mind.

No, I may not be able to 
follow through with actions
of absolute forgiveness - 
not for my injustices.
But I can experience, 
somewhere in the illuminated
aura of my soul,
the truth of absolute worthiness.

For every. Single. Being.

Undeniably.

So that brings us to honor.

If we are each wholly, undeniably
worthy, then it becomes
evident that we are each
worthy of honor.

Me. You. The planet. My dog.
Your asshole of a neighbor.
The pieces of trash that
may or may not find their
way to the landfills.

No, I do not want to honor 
assholes or landfills.
I cry to see trash that
randomly litters a 
corner of the planet that
I care about.
The woods, the rivers...
my woods, my rivers.

I try not to shrink in overwhelm.

I soften to rediscover the
courage of the sword.
Perhaps it's a sword of discernment.
Perhaps it will help me make
small, yet significant, courageous
decisions on how to best act.

With this sword of light and discernment
I can choose just how I demonstrate
that all of life is
worthy of honor,
including my righteousness,
confusion and desire for
​a harmonious existence.