Little one
With the curious eyes
And hesitant steps
Just like mine.
Oh that I could hold you
On the day you were born
Whisper
“Your skin is my skin. I won’t shatter the mirrors that we look at.”
And as she is growing,
Butterfly barrettes in her hair
Her face is raised to the sky
Tears on her lucent skin.
If I could
I would put my forehead to hers
“Don’t believe what they say” I would tell her, eyes steady.
“There is miracle written in your sinews.
There is sacredness hidden in your bones.
You are more beautiful than you can know.
God’s child
and I promise not to tell you
anything different.”
Her days pass
She walks through thorn bushes…
So much she has to sift through
So many scrapes on her skin.
Can’t she see how strong she is?
How can I tell her that all those scars
Will one day turn to gold?
She holds a shattered picture frame
The portrait missing now
“The fault is mine”
Is what she always believes.
It’s so easy for her to forgive
Anyone but herself.
So easy to love
Anyone that is not her.
If I could, I would let go of all that regret and forgive her.
I would say
“Dear one,
You did the best that you could with what you had at the time.
Can you turn all that love that pours out from your luminous heart
Back onto yourself?”
If I could,
I would brush the ashes out of her hair
Tell her that she belongs to me
I would put my arms across her back
Hold her up
And help her walk
Towards the deep deep love
That has always been ours.
We would keep walking
Until we realized that we were already home
Because home was always within us.
We would prepare a table
Right there in the wilderness
And as we ate our broken bread
We would speak these wondrous words:
“We are not alone.
We were never alone
to begin with”
Oh that I could hold you
On the day you were born
Our hearts beating so terribly close
I would say to you
“The journey ahead of us
Will be full of trouble and full of beauty
Often at the very same time.
Pain will be ours
But so will resilience.
The awakening will come, little one.
The awakening has already come. “