from BARDO

The stars are in our belly; the Milky Way our umbilicus.

Is it a consolation that the stuff of which we’re made

is star-stuff too?


– That wherever you go you can never fully disappear –

dispersal only: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen.


Tree, rain, coal, glow-worm, horse, gnat, rock.


Roselle Angwin

Tuesday, 24 December 2013

enough



How would it be to know
that I already have enough
or more than enough
and that happiness lies
in knowing, and sharing,
the plenty in my heart?

And when I have given you
all I have to give
then at last I am free
to love you.


~ Roselle Angwin

4 comments:

  1. Another beautifully phrased nugget of truth, Roselle, and one I've both understood instantly and yet puzzled over as if I feel its truth but know how difficult it is to achieve. So pure and simple yet so deeply complex. The difficulty, I find, is in knowing when you have given 'all I have to give' and being at last free to love properly – i.e. with true acceptance, without finding fault.
    So much here to think about and I still wonder if I have completely understood your poem in all its depths.
    From a sleepy, fresh-aired (round and up and down Broadway Hill with the two J's, feeling at times happy, exasperated, present-but-not-heard, and amused) Miriam not at all sure she's given enough to feel free to love.
    With love, M.

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  2. Miriam, I'm not sure I understand the poem either! Thank you for responding. I've had the computer off for 3 full days: very busy family time, but now in bed with flu, womanfully held off over the actual Christmas period. With love to you all. R

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    Replies
    1. Sorry to hear about the flu – and I like that 'woman fully' – so apt! Make the most of the enforced rest if you can. I know, not at all easy.
      Funny what you say about not understanding the poem either. Sometimes it takes other people to tell us what we really mean. I'm always delighted when other people see things in my stuff that I've known but not been conscious of.
      Get well soon. Love, Miriam.

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  3. Thanks Miriam. I guess I have a sense what the poem is about but couldn't articulate it in prose - glad you could also sense something! Love, R

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