Hope for the Impoverished Soul

The Quiet Power
-Tara Sophia Mohr

I walked backwards, against time
and that’s where I caught the moon,
singing at me.
 
I steeped downwards, into my seat
and that’s where I caught freedom,
waiting for me, like a lilac.
 
I ended thought, and I ended story.
I stopped designing, and arguing, and
sculpting a happy life.
 
I didn’t die. I didn’t turn to dust.
 
Instead I chopped vegetables,
and made a calm lake in me
where the water was clear and sourced and still.
 
And when the ones I loved came to it,
I had something to give them, and
it offered them a soft road out of pain.
 
I became beloved.
 
And I came to know that this was it.
The quiet power.
I could give something mighty, lasting,
that stopped the wheel of chaos,
 
by tending to the river inside,
keeping the water rich and deep,
keeping a bench for you to visit.
 

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Some say, "Enough."   Others--I am one--scrape and scrape at sore spirits looking for--always more--to give.  We givers create our own bête noire.  The beast never feeds, for that is how she devours. She takes peace and gives harried moments.  The last bits are her hallowed things.  Her wheels will not still until we exorcise this way of giving and learn to tend the spirit.  That is why I love this poem.  It is the blueprint for recovery.  It offers hope.  My gifts will come from abundance.  My waters will be rich and deep.  

The poet, Tara Sophia Mohr, blogs at http://www.taramohr.com/.