This poem was inspired via a writing prompt at the Writer’s Gathering I attend on Monday evenings, here in Seattle. The initial prompt was to write down one word describing how you were feeling. The second was pulling an ‘angel word’ out of a cup and then using that word, along with your feeling word in a writing exercise without actually using the named words in your response. My feeling word was: perplexed, and the word to go alongside it? Expectancy.  The following is what emerged 🙂

Floating at the edge of waiting.

That’s how I feel,

my life and body being held in a vast pool of warm water.

No one else lingers about and I wonder

am I alone?

No, there are voices that dance over the water towards me 

and I know that friends, family and community are near;

yet I do not hear their distinct stories.

Their words float like music, drifting above and below,

holding and sustaining me,

yet undistinguishable and non recognizable – like a foreign tongue.

This floating on the edge of waiting

is like being in the desert wilderness.

The mystery of entering questions

and the unknowns of my future.

An angel of hope and goodness whispers her song in my ear

and my heart is able to slow down.

I am able to practice more of this daily letting go.

I know that mystics have written about this and I take comfort in their journey.

Did they float at the edge of waiting?

To listen, watch, contemplate, observe, wait –

waiting for what, exactly?

I’m not sure.

Yet I sense a deep change,

a new birth, a life force slowly brewing below the surface

like a really rich cup of tea,

or better yet,

a rich, warm, earthy, full bodied cabernet –

full of terroir in its depths –

the mingling of the earth, the groundedness of the element rich soil

mixed with the ever changing winds of the seasons.

Floating, at the edge of waiting.

A gentle easing of my body into the warmth of life.

A floating in the midst of turbulent waters, crashing waterfalls, gentle whirlpools and calming seas,

floating, at the edge of waiting.