Layers of Grieving

by Lara Struckman

I. The Throws 

Your voice paints across the impossible expanse 

Of my mental cavity 

My memory coated with your callous whisper 

Like wind whipping window panes 

Every breath a caress 

Of glass against my mind 

Cold and unwelcome 

I come here to be alone 

But your presence is a rampage  

Against my sovereignty 

Still the mind that leaves you  

Will I ever be familiar in an alien world 

Or will the sun keep shining from the fluorescent bulbs 

Of my own Twilight zone 

Dark is the night of the reckoning 

Where the soul meets the mind  

In a endless game of tug of war 

Who will win they jaunt and jeer 

A wrench in the spine 

Cool sweat on the brow 

A stench so foul and familiar 

Then stillness.  

Temporary reprieve from the dark dank must that ravages my sanity 

Back again. 

The pace quickens 

Tunnel vision vignettes the edges in a veil of silvery darkness 

Like ink spreading through a drop of water 

Blood mixing with wine 

Bones are in bondange 

Aching to be set free  

In a primal burst of rage 

Or wait… 

Is it back again so soon? 

Release, freedom in the stillness after the wake 

Just as quick as it returns, it leaves again 

Like leaves falling from an autumn tree  

On a cold blustery night 

Like the hot breath of an animal 

Slithering down your neck 

The death of the self becomes  

The fodder for which you lie on 

For alas, you. are. still. Here. 

II. Denial 

The sickness we are fleeing  

Is the system we are feeding 

Fear is the true culprit 

Fueled by corporate 

Lies on our tongues 

Keep climbing those rungs 

Until you see you are climbing away  

From that which yearns to be saved 

That which is sacred 

We forget til we’re dead 

Can we go on alone  

Or will we be stripped to skin and bone 

Here on hands and knees 

Hear the wisdom in the breeze 

From the ground we will raise it 

From the sound we are sacred 

Separateness begets anguish 

So we call out to I’x  

Mother Earth beneath us 

Dig deep to excavate our roots 

In some hope of sipping truth 

Salty, sweet, sour, bitter 

The rush of the waters 

The crunch of the sand 

I see you great mother 

I feel the anguish of your center 

We say save the planet 

But what we really mean is 

Save ourselves 

How could we be so blind 

As to not know  

That we are nothing  

Without you. 

Beings of the earth 

Beings of the stars 

The torment we feel is  

Product of your suffering 

We are not on the earth 

But of it 

Swirling in the minds of millions 

Yet we forget 

The wisdom of the womb 

The womb of the earth 

The core of our vessel 

In communion with you 

Our bodies have not forgotten 

We live in liminality 

Paradox of being and BEing 

Vision and Seeing 

Breath and Breathing 

Celestial fluid drips into our knowingness 

The veil thins yet we look away 

Unwilling to see the truth of our disconnection 

We claim to live in peace 

Yet we are at war within ourselves 

Warring against the living knowledge that pulses in every vein  

Weaving thread in the sacred geometry  

When will our time come 

To shed our skins and return  

Home  

III. Surrender 

A new dawn breaks 

And so do I 

In a million pieces of glass 

That will someday be used for a mosaic 

Gratitude forming on my lips, 

But I can’t yet say it 

Piece by piece I surrender 

Decomposing slowly the parts of me  

That want me to forget 

That plague me with regret 

I’m sorry doesn’t cut it 

But the guilt is cutting me 

I lay down my weapons 

And I fall to my knees 

Surrounded by grace, offering up 

To some far away place 

I give my burdens a voice 

To express what is voiceless 

In time I open my heart 

With fear and relief in equal parts. 

At least this is somewhere to start 

Rumi says the cracks are how the light gets in 

Well I must be glowing  

Constellations of stars on my skin 

Bursting supernovas sputtering out 

The grief of letting go 

Like a thousand candles being blown out  

IV. Rebirth 

Green clovers in a field of snow 

The goddess Brigid with seeds to sow 

Seeds of liberation  

Of remembrance 

Of that which we already know 

Breathe not just for air, 

But for the bittersweetness of rebirth that is there 

To feel this space in your cells  

Is to make it worth 

Being born at all.  

Draw up from the wells 

For there is abundance 

Fill up your cup and let the memories dance 

Move through you like sunshine  

Permeating your being in time 

But not without the possibility of being burned 

Birth is not easy 

Nor quick, nor smooth, nor learned 

It is felt deeply with no return. 

Imagine being that steadfast dandelion 

Splitting sidewalk cracks 

Now stop imagining 

Because you are that resilient little thing 

Not so little after all 

To live again is not something so spectacular 

But is simply the truth of our life 

Grow Or Die 

Is what God says 

Let that which has withered  

Fertilize the ground  

From which you are sprouting. 

Deep breath. 

Now take another. 

Ask yourself not where you are going, 

But where has your love not reached. 

Let it propagate like those 

Dandelion seeds 

 On a midsummer’s breeze 

 Repeat. 

Arline Almeter is a junior dance major from Newtown, Connectocut. Her work has been featured in Student DanceWorks 2019 and 2020, Lehigh Valley Dance Exchange's Freshly Squeezed Showcase, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, and Volume 10 of Pitch. In the fall of 2020, she performed in Monica Bill Barnes & Company's The Running Show - Behind the scenes of the work in progress as part of an ensemble of LVAIC student dancers.

Lara Struckman is a senior public health major at Cedar Crest. She is a trauma-informed yoga and meditation instructor who guides others back to their natural rhythms and cycles of ease and resilience. Lara is deeply passionate about the environment and the state of our relationship with the Earth and our own nature. This inspires her writing, earth-based spirituality, and public health work that focuses on collective healing and whole community health.