cthewind's Blog

Three years ago the pandemic caused cancellation and closure in every sphere of life. We’re still going through it. Layers of change and new protocols cause continual unsettling and cumulative exhaustion. It’s a lot to bear.

Here’s a poem I wrote in the first days of lockdown in 2020: to bear it

to bear it

Just what are you asking?

and how long will it take?

If you knew the long term consequences—

            knew them in advance—

                        did you? did anyone?—

            would it change what you’re doing right now?

to hold it

The heaviness you’re holding…

it may be the cross,

yet it may be your body giving witness,

telling a story words can’t

about the grief, about the confusion, about the frustration,

about the I. Can’t. Even. of these days

to endure it

The suffering you’re enduring…

it may be the cross,

yet it may be the manner in which your life is on display,

no longer according to the rules you know,

but with new rules, judged intimately and remotely,

by criteria not known in advance

to birth it

The new life you’re birthing…

it may be the cross,

yet it may be the place you offer—

outside institutions as you’ve known them—

inside yourself, yet only partially, and never belonging to you—

a place for the source that sustains all to renew itself through breath

to bear it

It will cost everything—

the comfort of friends,

the security of work,

the freedom to move about the world as you intended.

Yet it will not be the end of the story.

What you bear in these days—

at great cost to you—

brings forth new life—

new ways of living,

new ways of bearing.