Riddle, picture, seed, poem

I dedicate this to a dear friend who’s mother passed last week. I invite you to engage with this piece as an experience that is a fuller form of reading. Start by reading the riddle-like poem. Then take a moment to look at the picture below it, which inspired the poem. After looking at it, close your eyes and put your hands over it, while you sense if it speaks to you in bodily sensations, emotions or thoughts. Then you can read the seed: the phrase that inspired the picture. Finally, read the poem again and see whether it lands differently for you.

Its tender core blazes,
but glimmers only faintly 
through shells of personality.

Always there,
in spite of pain
and squabbles.

Flowing through arms that hold 
and legs that abandon.
Molded to the shape
of my snowflake. 

I’ve given and received it
many times, in countless lives.
From woman to baby,
and as bunny, fern and eagle.

Who am I to judge its methods?
Each time it wears unfamiliar garments.
So that I can learn to welcome 
new forms I don’t yet know. 

Each womb and rearing: 
A voice and body
of the Universal Cradle.

Teaching me 
to nurture my dreams,
my Self.

And even when the earthly face, 
with wrinkles rests interred,
Its source still lives and cares.

Whispering breeze-lullabies.
Shimmering tree-leaf encouragement. 
Caressing raindrop tenderness.

A Mother’s Love

Its tender core blazes,
but glimmers only faintly 
through shells of personality.

Always there,
in spite of pain
and squabbles.

Flowing through arms that hold 
and legs that abandon.
Molded to the shape
of my snowflake. 

I’ve given and received it
many times, in countless lives.
From woman to baby,
and as bunny, fern and eagle.

Who am I to judge its methods?
Each time it wears unfamiliar garments.
So that I can learn to welcome 
new forms I don’t yet know. 

Each womb and rearing: 
A voice and body
of the Universal Cradle.

Teaching me 
to nurture my dreams,
my Self.

And even when the earthly face, 
with wrinkles rests interred,
Its source still lives and cares.

Whispering breeze-lullabies.
Shimmering tree-leaf encouragement. 
Caressing raindrop tenderness.