may she rest in eden

may she rest in eden

שתנוח עדן

Original Title: The Burden of Silence

(November 30, 2016)

Silence, forced

is heavy to bear.

Those who hide

carry it inside

as pain that sometimes

makes them sick,

not allowing touch

enough to open up

the spaces where

it needs to live.

Those who reveal

and do not know

what silence is

are free of it,

but pay for it

another way,

in missing what they

long for, sometimes

knowing that

they sent it away

too soon.

Silence, forced

at times is buried

like a body

in a deep

or shallow grave

an early grave

a hole in the flesh

of this home

we call, and keep

calling 

Earth.

At least she knows

and understands, will hold

as Mother, finally there

as you, no longer willing

to betray

the secrets it carried,

too long

Contained

Allow the body

of quiet

agony to settle

in the ground

be cradled

and embraced

no longer required

to occupy invisible

submission

to a master you did not

invite

The silence,

Offer it to breath

That awakens the wind

That calls the sea

In waves of confirming

Comforting noise

Offer it to someone

long since gone

the way of all the flesh,

living now

without the pain

or heaviness of body,

having freed it

from the grave

and death it had known

in life

Offer it to someone

who could be a ghost

or just a memory that left

impressions in the dust.

Give its voice a song

Maybe one you never knew

so it can fly with wings

not bruised and battered

by the ones you thought

could carry you

But there is one

you might encounter,

one you recognize

An echo, not defined

by memories you know,

but a story

and a space you thought

might be a place,

but never found

as Eden

You had once believed

had beckoned,

hoped would welcome

You

A fantasy turned

sorrowful, a cold 

forgotten paradise

where a woman

may have been

the first to choose

to enter choice

Choice?

The house of death

where being

clothed with flesh

is the prize most coveted

by even the most vile

of all the devils

seeking body without birth

not to be alive and free

but instead to enslave

the willing

and unwilling souls

only to fulfill

their pleasure, never satisfied    

but always trying

in their suffocating,

strangling way

to empty souls,

leaving just enough of life

inside the corpse

to animate the death

remaining.

That is the burden

Of Silence

The hollow weight

inside a song

that once rang

as a promise

Abundant as the life

that once they knew

as paradise

That man and woman,

curious enough

or foreordained to follow

Perhaps,

a plan

not made in time,

not yet knowing

that they knew

Was it a choice?

Were they real?

She who holds you knows.

Allow the weight

that silence bears

to fill the space

be heavy

in her hold,

let her make you light

and give you

access to the Source

Not the one who smites

or turns away

or fights

the one

who honored you

to bring you here

No, listen to

the one who carries

you back and eventually

carries you forward

as far as you have been

and you will go

-- Mary Anne Stewart

(completed in December 2016)

 Photo by Mary Anne Stewart, 2011