Deep Peace/Quiet Earth

Last week we buried my 

niece's thirty one year old husband. 

Today, I watch the last of the leaves 

clinging to the oak tree, one 

sails off, gliding this way and that, 

on the slow descent to the quiet, 

frozen earth. 

I've been avoiding this post, 

wondering if I would share, 

but knowing I wanted to - 

to tell you why I haven't responded to all 

your wonderful comments on the last post. 

For I, too, am hanging on a tiny thread, 

like the faded oak leaf, 

seeing the dark, 

still earth beneath my feet. 

Spiral stone drawings.

A praying angel. 

Dark trunks 

and rhythmic branches. 

A setting sun.

  

At the cemetery I sang the 

ancient Celtic Deep Peace prayer. 

I was trembling, 

again the oak leaf, 

 holding by a thread 

to a moment.

But it was 

necessary

to sing 

Deep Peace 

of the Quiet Earth to you, 

over and over and over. 

  

I've been thinking, 

that if trauma doesn't crack you up,

it cracks you open.

As I sit in heart-wrenching witness of 

my beloved niece, 

I feel how deeply I love, 

and gratitude washes over me, 

in finding this sacred gift, 

and in feeling  

the peace of the 

quiet earth 

holding me.