A poem for Truth and Reconciliation Day.
.
Broken generations,
We hear yesterday’s lost children weeping,
Embrace today’s children,
Reach to tomorrow’s children
With our torn hearts.
.
I gratefully acknowledge that I live and work in the unceded, traditional territory of the Secwepemc people.
This is forgiveness.
Left alone, forgotten, until you
became a dessicated husk.
Discovered, remorse poured on you,
and you rested, recovering,
absorbing all you needed to heal.
One year.
Regret poured onto you.
Two years.
Faith surrounded you.
Three years
You offered a single bloom to give us hope.
Another year.
Patience. Trust.
This is what time and forgiveness bring:
full flowering!
Ah, the anticipation of your full celebration
makes me dizzy.
.
.
![20181104_103441[1]](https://shawnbird.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/20181104_1034411.jpg)
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True story. Took my Christmas Cactus outside to enjoy some summer sun (2014?). Forgot it there. Come fall, it was a wizened shell. It’s taken years to recover, but it HAS! What a metaphor for tragedy in our lives and the patience we need with our recovery.
The physiotherapist
rolls, stretches, and manipulates
my ankle joint.
Push here.
Pull there.
Between parallel bars
re-learn to walk:
roll from the heel,
flex that joint.
Let go.
If you rely on the supports
and are too tender with the joint
you’ll continue to limp.
Your body will think it must,
even when the joint is healed.
How many other ways
am I limping in my life?
How many other ways
should I re-learn to walk?
.
For Jody and Anita
You find the perfect spot
for maximum irritation
you rip apart the incision
determined to arrest healing.
I long to rip you off,
toss you away,
have air and water and space
surround me,
to heal the gash
and help to find my footing again.
.
.
.
Dedicated to my Aircast® which has a air tube glued right at my incision line. This is a painful irritation! Yeah, yeah. So I’m being literal. Nothing is stopping you from taking it figuratively. That’s what poetry is all about! 🙂
I know
you’re broken.
I see the fracture lines
behind your eyes
I feel the seepage
leaking from the crack in your soul.
I have
needle, thread
glue
and hope.
I’ll share.
Shawn L. Bird 
we are the music May 24, 2011
Tags: Charles de Lint, harp, healing, music, postaday2011, therapy
(I told you I’d have something to say about this eventually, didn’t I?)
I am fascinated by music therapy. You may be thinking of the research that shows how music connects for Altzheimer’s patients, but that’s not what I mean.
In the harp community research has been done on how sound waves align cells, and can induce healing at the molecular level. It’s rather profound and quite amazing. Playing the harp is a rather meditative thing. With your legs and arms wrapped around the sound box , the sound waves travel through your body. You can feel it. Certain notes can make your head tingle or your spine stretch. You can feel the music reaching inside your arms and legs and relaxing or awakening your body. This is why harp therapy exists. With a harp tuned in a pentatonic scale (five notes, all complimentary) it is impossible to make any dissonance, and even bed-bound patients can hold a small harp against their chest, strumming or plucking and absorbing those sound waves.
Some innovative hospitals include such therapy in their medical teams.
Sonic therapy, The Harps of Lorien, and International Harp Therapy are just some of the projects that explore the magic and mystery of this form of healing and transition therapy. I’m so glad that I have my harps and have the opportunity to sit and absorb the science of the universe whenever I want.
Music is a miracle and we are part of its resonance in the world.
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