In the morning I awake, and I sit with my tea, hot and sweet. Tea, the colour of my skin when the sun hasn’t found me for a long, long while, and I sit, and I sit, and I sit, and I go deep within—right to the crumbling edge of the wall where the old magnolia tree blooms.

I learnt how to do this a long time ago.

Eyes closed, I say, ‘I am listening. I am listening. I am listening.’ And I stumble through my day feet bare, and dirty, from all the living I have done, and some of it you would not believe, even if I told you with all the words in my mouth, so I won’t.

I won’t.

But I know a few things and they have held me with their rough hands, and I have learnt how to yield into them, and it wasn’t easy, but always, always, always, they have been there. Just standing in exactly the right places, sitting on the same bench, waiting next to my bed, covering my ears, my eyes, my mouth.

Feathers and light, they are glued together with hope, and all the dark things that we are not allowed to say in holy places, and they know, and they know, and they know.

And they have seen the other rooms, the other roads, and they are there, and they are here.

And they are holy.
I know.

And they know my name, but I know only how to say, ‘Help me, please, and thank you.’

I know.

I peel carrots for lunch, pour apple juice for a thirsty boy, and still I say, ‘I am listening. I am listening. I am listening.’

And I grow small inside, and I wrap myself around the faces of children, and a mother who will have to be shown how to un-mother, and a father who will have to look away, over and over.

And I use all the words that I keep right on top of my small basket of love, and grace, and hope, and I say, ‘I bless you. I bless you. I bless you with the soft voices of your babies. May they sing to you, may it be happiness and kindness and the soft smell of their hair. I bless you with a small, green leaf of hope, and may it always find you, and grace, dear God, may you swim all your days in warm, liquid grace. I wish I had more, but there are others who do, and I have asked them to love you when your air grows thin, and it will, I know, and when your days stretch long before you, in a shape that you cannot escape, I bless you with the fragrance of freesias in the dust. And I say, I see you. I know. I know. I know, and I bless you.’

Small, smaller, smallest.

The smaller I am the further I can see. The smallest me, is the one that hears through walls.

I forget who I was yesterday, and what I wanted to be this morning, and how I want to be tomorrow. I walk with silence breathing inside my chest. Everywhere I look there is beauty. Everywhere I turn there is pain.

Grace.

‘I am listening. I am listening. I am listening.’

Waiting for the words to say.

May all the grace that I have been given, find you, and hold you, and love you, and may it never let go.

— may all the grace that I have been given, find you.

Photograph by Valeriia Miller, on Unsplash.

words free from anything formal and restrictive. forgive me for that.

a prayer, a blessing, words that I send into the ether, into the other worlds.

a reminder that grace is only grace if we give it in the same measure that we have been given it.

x

{For DM and AM who need all the grace that I have been given}