by Carolyn Chilton Casas
from twenty years past, taken
on a foreign beach.
You’re standing thigh-deep
in an aqua sea, looking back
toward the camera,
mask and snorkel dangling
from your forehead,
wearing a flowered, two-piece
bathing suit and a few extra pounds
from living that good life.
I look into your eyes, think
this is innocence, the calm
before your world imploded—
father found dead in his easy chair;
the blip revealed
on your husband’s routine tests;
a dear friend’s plane crashed
into a mountain peak in Baja;
and your mother ill,
on the brink of dying.
The constant decision present
in the sanctuary of your heart—
retreat in fear and sadness
or listen to the rising sense
that tells you compassion shown
to others will be the only
trustworthy way to soothe the sorrow.
Only I know what you chose.
It makes me ache
to hold you in my arms, say thank you
for the woman I’ve become.
***
Carolyn Chilton Casas is a Reiki master and teacher who often explores ways of healing in her articles written for magazines in several countries. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies including The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal. More of Carolyn’s work can be found on Facebook or Instagram, in her poetry collection Our Shared Breath, and in the forthcoming book Under the Same Sky.
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