POEM: It Can Be Soft, Too

A poem about ancestral healing and the alchemy of turning towards the past to reclaim the future.

Making a fairy house with my daughter, Catskills NY

A reading…(some words slightly different)

Poem: It Can Be Soft, Too
By Schuyler Brown
November 2022

A voice said: Life is hard. 
And I believed it until it was.
I made it into a mantra
and a way of life
That over the years,
was making me smaller, 
not bigger.

Voices whispered: Who is this guy? 
Suspicious of the healer 
who came to help;
my life force stuck,
the way unclear.
He offered hope and freedom.
They scoffed with doubt.

A voice repeated
over and over again:
Your efforts are futile.
Seeding self-defeat
so I would never try
to do the thing that might fail...
but just might work.
A desperate attempt 
to keep my feet on the ground;
to keep me from flying.

My pleasure and success 
felt like something I’d stolen--
or gotten away with.
Something that would be taken from me
at the first opportunity.
Gratitude, blocked by fear
that it might disappear,
that the situation might be brief,
that maybe, I am bad
and don’t deserve relief.
Even when I received plenty
I couldn’t say thank you,
not really.
And it made me sad 
because I could see
how much I had.

Then one day, I asked:
What is this voice? Who is speaking?
It was quiet then 
as I realized:
These voices are not mine.
They were coming from beyond this life;
ancient and dense with time,
ancestral legacy
whispered in my inner ear,
tunes plucked on heart strings,
written in genes,
memories too hard to bear.
A matter of actual survival.
The ancestors spoke
because they needed me to know.
They needed me to feel
their pain and frustration.
They sent it as a teaching, 
a protection, even.
They didn’t want me to fail; 
to fall into the same trap 
of hope and despair
that colored their days and lives on earth.

So I turned towards them.
I took on their pain. 
I acknowledged the suffering.
I sat with their stories
and listened with my body.
It wasn’t enough to understand. 
They needed me to feel 
what they could not.

So…
I cried. 
I wailed. 
I petitioned God for them:
WHY? WHY?
I called to the sky.
I cried with my arms wrapped around trees.
I lay on the ground like a baby, weeping.
It was a lot of sensation.

Then,
I built an altar and made offerings. 
I said and meant it: “I hear you in your outrage.
I know how hard it was.”
Because now, I did.
I said prayers to deities I couldn’t yet feel.
I tried to find them through sheer will.
I wrote. 
I sensed my way into something like...
openness.
I trusted. 
Sometimes, all I had was that trust.
I believed in me.
I believed that my light
could reverse a family legacy:
Poverty.

None of this was hard.
None of this was suffering. 
This was grief. 
This was healing.
This was beautiful.

I am the hope of my ancestors.
I am the promise of restoration.
In that prayer I found
the other half of my inheritance:
treasure chest of sparkling smiles,
sweetness like a child’s,
love of story, song, and words,
a body made for dance and play,
direct line to spirit,
with a preacher’s elocution...
This magic is real 
and we know how to use it.

I must have been ready 
for this feast of plenty.
Sweet nectar of continual flowing
burst damns and ran through me.
Now, I cannot stop the gratitude.
It happens all the time.
I thought this state of abundance might feel naive;
instead it feels like a birthright.
It feels…natural
to pour forth into this world 
the praise I hold
for the whole.

This abundance is real.
An antidote to the separation we feel, 
the medicine for our ancestor’s grief.
We are here to hold their pain--
But, lightly
so we can remember 
the whole story:
Yes, life can be hard. 
But, it can be soft, too.
As we bask in the infinite promise
of finally belonging
to the past,
this present moment,
and all that it holds for us
and for our children.

~~