Phil Gardner
Listening for Home
Poetry and Prose
Contemplation for Your Soul
Wounds
These wounds show me where I often have not been able to listen to another. Deep scars that fold the flesh and tighten the muscles and sinews; stressing the bones of ancestral twilight; thresholds of pain and sorrow, choking the throat and filling the space of my being with invisible storm clouds and selfish desires to be met, while the other waits, expectantly for my acknowledgement of their own suffering.
My past grips me in those moments, making me forget, that from the very first "human handprint on a cave wall, we're part of something continuous."
From rings that bind us to another's hand, removed for a meeting with spirit in a lodge of glowing stones and vapour. Removed for a heart that yearned to be free from a cage forged in the underworld.
Freedom and truth call now, with a horn of amber and pipes of ebony from Africa...the wellspring of humanity.
And love and joy whisper continuously, in softer tones, asking to be remembered; to be heeded when heaviness descends from unknown heights and seriousness threatens to dampen our smiles.
Stay alert and listen for their cries in each moment. Pause, and leave spaces between the notes of each song that life offers up. For there, you will find a question: 'How shall I show up in this moment?'
A simple enough question, but overflowing with libation and liberation.
Soft Moonlight
At times all can seem lost.
Thoughts tell me I'm not enough,
storm clouds rumble to the west,
thunder beings scare the body.
But to the East, the moon's soft glow
reminds me that I am held
by my own invisible hands,
unclouded by the stories of sin.
Listening
The trickling song of the water,
cascading down river bed steps;
the sound of stone against rock
as it falls from a crumbling monolith;
the whisper of the southern breeze,
and the soft footfalls of flames
as they dance to the rhythm of wood.
Dark Places
Dark places pull at me,
shadows creep and reach out
to ensnare and capture
without thoought or care.
Pulled down, and pulled back,
Into horrors from long ago
that retain the same ink,
the same signature
of a time when I was lost
and oh so alone.
I find some light,
some glimmer of hope,
and my body finds sealegs
to passage the storm
as waves threaten
to take the whole ship down.
The sea calms, but for a moment,
because shadows come again and again
never letting me go.
Let me go, I plead. Let me go!
The darkness swirls around me
swallowing the last stars
and leaving me with nothingness.
Is this the end? Lost and alone,
purposeless and unatoned.
Nothing to be done,
but let the dark take me.
Back in the womb, it feels
after the terror subsides,
and I find a twinkling light
in the darkest of nights,
calling me back out again
into the place I do not want to go.
Pain lies there, a voice pipes up.
But I know this is not the whole truth,
that there is more.
There is a dance to be had with
with a mountain at sunrise.
There are forests to bathe in
and rivers to sing.
And fathomless oceans
and the adventures they bring.
And there is me.
With all my faults and all my woes,
I am here to know me in the throes
of what life offers.
Aren't I curious, don't I wonder
at this miracle of me
with my symphonic body
and mindful decrees?
And so what if the dark
of which I'm so afraid,
takes me in its jaws
and chews me away?
I'm alive right now
Collective Embrace
Come, sit with me,
in this place of cracks
and rifts and fissures,
where the darkness seems
never ending as it spills
from Pandora's Box and
seeps into every corner
of you, and me.
We've avoided this place
for so long, you and I.
We've repressed and distracted,
denied and shamed,
rejected and separated,
annihilated and invaded;
and felt the weight of guilt
as we abandoned the world.
And when the guilt and wrongness arise,
faced with the tyrant of you or I,
can we face the anger, the violence, the fire,
can we watch and embrace the funeral pyre
of the one inside, so certain to die,
as it feels the guilt, the endless sigh
of fallen warriors from long ago,
lamenting their sins, their shame in tow.
But perhaps today's the day
that we turn towards
the legacy of our kith and kin,
and with the soft sound of felted feet,
step into the abyss
of this great rent in our fabric,
that has caused so much harm
to our sisters and brothers.
I sit here now with the weight
of the world's guilt in my arms.
And you sit by my side
without malice or blame,
resting a hand on my shoulder
that brings fiery teardrops
from the sunless sea,
10,000 fathoms below.
These tears slept long
in their crystal cocoons,
waiting for a day
when they'd be freed in the womb
from the hatred we've wrought
and humanity's dread,
finding their way out
along a silvery thread.
And now released
from these tired eyes,
they nourish the earth,
the seas and the skies,
with dreams long forgotten
of a love requited,
and a sacred embrace,
Yin and Yang united.
As lovers we swirl and sway
our colors merging like night meets day,
we climb from the oubliette,
realising that a messy freedom
is far more beautiful than
the order we found in that dungeon of forgetting.
Are we willing to risk everything
to break open that heart of darkness?
Are we willing to pause and feel,
and sink into what most pains us,
frightens us, and lean in with the most tender kiss.
Here I pause and ask that you,
my brothers and sisters,
let go of the meaning
and listen to the whispers
in the rhythm and tone,
while celestial light
wakens to a night
of ancestral dreaming,
that would loose these chains,
these collars and cuffs,
parting ways with all that we knew as tough,
and embracing the soft
that breaks old walls,
and melts the spears
in the warlord's halls.
Drink from this cup,
imbibe its song,
the wine will flow
to the rapture of one,
for you, my friends,
are far from alone,
you're the part of me
I've yet to atone,
to meet and embrace,
to join with your race,
and finally know
what it means to be whole.