Anima

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. “