Showing posts with label Be Gentle With Yourself. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Be Gentle With Yourself. Show all posts

Monday, June 17, 2024

Surface Roots, Falling Leaves

Photo © 2024 Jennifer Wagner


 

 

The arms and hands

of my grandfathers, grandmothers—

 

the gnarled roots—

my history

 

a map on the earth

I step over

 

so as not to disturb them, leave them

as they are, unmarred by my boots.

                                                              

I’ve tried to clear them

so widely,

 

intending to be unencumbered

by what held them, too.

 

In my youth

I believed it could be so.

 

But now

I have walked a mile or two,

 

or how ever many thousands,

and my feet ache

 

with the heaviness

of trying.

 

The tripping, the falling,

the climbing back up.

 

But these I’ve been given

have led me to see,

 

and to sit basking

in the whispering of paper-thin leaves

 

teaching me how

to speak gently to myself

 

of forgiveness,

even more now my own necessity.

 

Because I am what I am

made of,

 

and my own stories

will fall, I hope,

 

like a gentle covering

for those who walk after me.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

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