At this time of year my body turns toward beginnings. Even so, my soul prompts me to honor all that has brought me to this moment. I feel the marks of the blessings and trials of being taken to the edge of death and nearly over its threshold. Inner wars, like mine with cancer, engage our bodies: constellate and mingle inner mysteries with outer relationships. Unconsciously, we might hold back from entering the mystery, refusing to step onto that platform where a car or train or bus or dream might sweep us into unknown wonder. “I don’t like this or that,” is the sound of fear bleating for us to be left as we are . . . to become dust under a dying sun. And within that caught breath, stubbornness sends shivers up the spine of doubt, doubling it into terror. That’s when we know we must do the thing we think we cannot do. And suddenly we are more than we thought we were or could be.
The presence of cancer is ever dimmer now and I’m entering the re-fit stage of relationship to my body. The energy will return gradually, I’m sure of that. In the meanwhile, holiday entertaining opens the door to gifting and remembrance, celebration and sorrow. Amid these rituals I am moved to share the poetry of my story. The lines of my poem are like prayers given life by the intonation of sounding words. It is offered in a vulnerable moment to bless and to include all in the journey into which these bones are borne.
I will refit my body this winter. I will honor and cross the desert of my fear; leaving cancer country and opening the door again to a fruitful relationship to the body of life. Now I tend my ancestral roots through the Polish tribal ritual of holiday cooking for friends and family. I must believe in the juices that mark my tongue with the scented taste for adventure even as the turning time breaks me, so to make me whole.
The Turning
Bent by so much sinning
against nature
my back turns now
toward a dark-spreading dawn-
Having sucked dry
the cup of pain
lips tinged with bittern fear
cry out . . .
Hah! What happens when
I try that
or do this?
What happens to me then?
Oh, may I now know
what makes me settle
in the dust,
prodding with rotten stick
the ground
beneath a dying sun?
And though my bones
ache for joy’s touch
they do not bend enough
to break
so they stretch a bit
and move my carcass
so to take
a new adventure on . . .
P. J. Fields (Jane Yaeger) began sharing her poems and paintings as a toddler. Later adventures in the fields of horse training, voice mentoring as well as two dances with cancer and world travels enrich her work at home and abroad. A full treatment of “Turning Time” and more of her art and writing lives at www.thesetreez.com