Reaching Back, Reaching Forward

The Thread
 
Before I knew her name
I knew her hands.
 
Before I understood
what she had survived
I felt her warmth
moving through my mother
into me.
 
This is how love travels --
not in the telling
but in the body.
Bone to bone.
Breath to breath.
The songs she sang
still rising in my chest
when words run out.
 
She had every reason
to close.
 
She didn't.
That is the whole of what I was given --
 
a heart
that knows how to stay open
when everything
is pressing down.
 
I carry her now the way the earth carries rain.
All the way in.

- MAUREEN OWEN  ​

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​SIT WITH THIS BEFORE MOVING TO THE NEXT PRACTICE.

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