While I’m caring for my new baby, I’m sharing some favorite posts from the past few years. This is one of them – enjoy! ~ Tara
The Quiet Power
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.
Love,
Tara
That is such a visceral poem – thank you 🙂
I’m working on a piece of art based on words from Jewish texts and images from the Song of Songs. The images is called the backward facing deer and refers to “My beloved is like a deer.” Your beautiful poem contains the essence of the meanings I’ve gleaned. Perfect timing, thank you!
Tara, I’m working a series of art pieces based on images from Islamic design and words from Jewish poems and texts, primarily from the Song of Songs. The piece I’m working on right now, today, is based on an image called the backward facing deer and reference in the Song of Songs “My beloved is like a deer”. Your beautiful poem contains some of the essence to me of the meanings I’ve gleaned. Perfect timing, thank you!
This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you. I needed that. I’ve been caught in that wheel of chaos and I’ve jumped off, but am still a little dizzy.
Thank you – timely for me.
Thank you for words that are so very meaningful to my heart at this point in my life.
Dear Tara, your poem reminds me so much of my own tomato-chopping-insight that I had a few years ago. Back then, I had just turned into the woman that you describe in the poem: “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 …”. It is exactly in this calm state of tomato chopping that I suddenly found myself completely ONE with everything. I was the knife and I was the tomato, I was the hand and the fingers chopping it all. I was the woman pausing and gazing through the kitchen window, I was the buzz of voices in the next room, the footsteps on the muddy path, the knocks on the front door. I was a woman just being fully present in the now. It might sound silly but in this moment of chopping tomatoes I had my first spiritual awakening into oneness 🙂 Thank you so much for your poem, because it reminds of something that I tend to forget: just to BE.
I love this Tara. Thank you. It’s so very rich and beautiful
I think this is my favorite of your poems I have read. Thank you!
Loved it!
Tara you bring me to tears often
This is SO very beautiful and helps me get back to that place I want to BE. Thank you. Mary