ruth forman said my prayers for me today, so for that i thank her

...after much needed rest and laying horizontal, i am feeling much better today. with that being said, i was literally transformed by ruth forman's work. i hunted around the internet for more of her poetry, and have a list of books that i now need to buy when i get some expendable income.

i have never in my life seen or felt a poem so succinct, beautiful, and oozing of truth than "i wear prayers like shoes". to hear her read it is even more beautiful than reading it. as cheesy as it is, i'm typing this to go on my wall.

this resonated with me so much because my mother's exact words that follow me are the same as her's:

"girl you go to God 
and get you some good shoes
cause this life ain't steady ground

literally. literally. every time i talk to my mother, faith becomes a part of the conversation. i was raised pentecostal, and its foundation began to unravel as i got older and needed to find my own footing (pun intended). her faith continues to inspire me, given how i see her transform her trials into inner triumph; "they the only ones keep her/standing". for me, the shoes are what are at the center of spiritual faith. it doesn't mean i love or believe in god/goddess/universal energy any less, doesn't matter what i call it. but had to find a practice that spoke to me, and from within me, directly. ruth sums this experience perfectly for me:

"now i don't wear hers
you take em with you you know
but i suspect they made by the same company"

they ARE made by the same company. trying to get this through to my mother has been, well, like herding cats, as she suspects that i'm worshipping the big guy sitting with his legs crossed -- not fully engulfing that buddha and jesus are pretty much guiding the same water through different fountains. i was so moved by her metaphor of shoes, using prayer/meditation/chanting as a means to ground you when all else around you works, and especially when all else fails. i've been having so many of these conversations and have, at the heart of me, a pull to maintain a spiritual foundation. the older i get, finding the time and space to nourish this footing is more necessary than ever, given how i just transformed physical place once more to here. so, this poem was right on time. it was the word i didn't get in church yesterday, cuz i didn't go. haha.

in relation to space and beat, her words are carefully placed and focused, like prayers, as they leave her body and are sent out into the earth. when speaking, she knows that each word has a ripple effect and vibration on the many living things that they touch. moreover, these vibrations have a transformative energy that speaks to the depth of each living spirit. it made me think, do the words that we share and write affirm life, or destroy it? she is into the preservation of life, and even when sharing tales of darkness, uses this darkness as a means to illuminate the light and life force with in it, and overall, heal. the same goes for "may peace come". THIS POEM. WOW.

to personify peace, successfully, is no easy task -- it's been done for centuries, and often in opposition to war and destruction. she's calling forth peace as a means to heal all of those life forces that have suffered, have been beaten down, silenced:

"each falling body never to raise up
each mouth that will not close
each child calling a parent that will never come home
each broken heart
each Bible clutched each Torah each Koran each holy book in every land
eye water spilled in pain
each blossoming belly despite us all
each you
each me reaching
to be better for our own self"

i can't tell you how powerful each one of these lines were. not to mention, the refrain of "each". this calls forth  a lessening of the "loneliness" and self-centeredness we all experience. in "each", it is remembered that there are billions of these moments occurring on the earth simultaneously. it brings heart to the interconnectedness of us all. if peace swept in from every angle, at each of these moments, this world would truly be a different place. i love her ending the poem, and rooting it, really, in the possibility of this happening. rather than being consistently reactionary, on the defense, as so many of us leftists have become (the goliath monsters of evil don't really give us much of a choice), what attempts do we make at going beyond the anger and rage, and healing ourselves to heal each other?

no matter what community activist circles we choose to operate in, what issues we stand for and with, no matter how much jargon is regurgitated, the soul and energy of each person speaks louder -- we can scream revolution all we want, but love and healing is an essential part of this. what does affirmation look like? are we so engulfed in the fight that it seems insurmountable to even give peace a chance to awaken from her slumber? would she "fall in love with us all" knowing the transformative energy she has, or because we've been transformed by her already? so many thoughts. i hope i'm not coming off too new-agey -- that shit's fleeting. these are ever present thoughts in my brain, teeter-tottering between "fight or take flight" mode, wanting to seep possibility out of every crack in the pavement, beyond anti-anti-anti bumper stickers. ruth stirred my soul with her language, and put me at ease (even during coffee). listening to alice coltrane's transcendence all the while got me in this zone for real.

also, the end line from suheir hammad's poem, "what i will", did the same thing for me:

your wardrum ain't louder than this breath.

again, back to the people, back to the living; "that skin you are hitting/was alive once". back to an affirming energy that breeds life, in the midst of the chaos...a true definition of beauty. it made me revisit her "first writing since" poem, to remember how powerful and transcendent the energy of this poem was during 9/11, filled with de jure hatred; how she managed to bring it all back to LIFE in the end is a testament to her power to slice through the war path. endlessly wonderful.

chile, i needa pray again.