Liberation (of motherhood and otherwise)

  
Sometimes I think I could stay here
All quiet and thoughtful up on this mountaintop
If only I could remain undisturbed

And left alone

THEN what a difference I’d make

And then I remember that I have you to thank

For all my best and worst rising to the surface

You help catalyze all my grandness and terribleness

And all this facing’s what makes a person whole

Without your love

Without you to love

I’d just be all face

And no facing

Void of depths

Too heavy on shallow heights

Thank you for all your yous

Meeting all my me.

And please, God, may my me (with You) liberate their mes as much as they’ve saved mine.

Expenditures of loving these all that fills right up:

Love’s liberation

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Craftiness

  

 Wondering if adding to the beauty

 May also take from it.

 Not always or necessarily, and thankfully not exclusively.

 But if indulging one’s craft

 Does more to contribute to self indulgence

 (And this may be a given to some degree)

 Then “adding to the beauty” 

 Is a misspeak.

 Before one satisfies one’s desire to create, or pursue, or whatever,

 There’s something of a decision:

 Will I serve them, or will I serve me?

 (One’s “craft” = one)

 If I decide to serve me (one)

 There may creep in an eventual sense of entitlement.

 And if not acknowledged and made to stand in its 

  Truthful non-entitlement place, 

 May grow – quiet-like – but insidious.

 And if not checked,

 And then if not indulged,

 The ‘I’s not indulged.

 And if the I’s not indulged

 It must be your fault.

 And if the self can convince the self it’s your fault

 – That it was somehow owed its “autonomy” 

 And not paid what it was owed –

 Then you must be punished

 – Whoever “you” are that was replaced, misplaced by my craft.

 I might not tell you.

 But quietly hold on to resentment

 (When I didn’t quiet the voice’s demands, I got to stay mad and entitled)

 Hold it, feed it, coddle it, start to act in its favor ‘stead of yours.

 And soon, there’s no beauty to be seen, 

 No pure craft to be had.

 Only I, me, my and the muddle of inanimate “craft” in my hands.

Love’s Thrill

  

 When the children came, “thrill” left

 Replaced by care and caution and love’s breadth

 Not always safe: the pursuit of safe.

 Lots may die in the wake of hesitate.

 But ah! That is not all there is.

 Before them wonder was a largely private (selfish) affair

 After them – with them, because of them – I am expanded

 Expanded in delight not just my own, but in delight in theirs

 What a gift! What a gift to be enlarged

 And stretched beyond my own thin skin

 These trenches and crumbs are not beneath me

 These are where the real life is – the full life is

 Forced outward love stretches all my womanhood

  – anyone’s personhood through parenthood – 

 Battle waged I am forced to reckon with these, with me

 To find that my self’s death is the truest liberty

 To be present and free from my own way:

 (Not just in order to indulge another’s whim)

 – But to provide what’s needed –

 This is liberation: realizing wholly the love within.

 So to find I’ve grown – and am willing more still –

 Becomes the delight of sacrifice – true love’s thrill

 To find that before I gloried in the small

 I’d venture I knew Glory not at all.