Through Silence & Ash

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Abstract

hat transforms ash into the nutrients for renewal. It may not look the same for everyone but it has the same reverential quality whether rivers of tears flow or our tears are frozen in a tundra of pain. In time, life compels movement and ash gives way to growth, to new promises, and to new journeys.</p><p id="b1bd">I wrote this poem for myself a few years ago, but today I would like to dedicate it to my friend <a href="https://medium.com/@pnlevesque">Peter Levesque</a>. Ash is scattering…I see wings.</p><div id="4e9f" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-meaning-of-the-phoenix-6e83dedd8d73"> <div> <div> <h2>The meaning of the Phoenix</h2> <div><h3>I never fully understood the meaning of the Phoenix until my world burnt down. First came death. In January of 2019, my…</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*_sGxiF5nHjODLtjtXbaEBA.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="8de8">Please check out some of my other work:</p><div id="2df5" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/griefs-paradox-8aef48a61151"> <div> <div> <h2>Grief’s Paradox</h2> <div><h3>The station dwells where else but in the city’s bowels. I descend.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*4Bk_AsuRlQ9TdJ_8B4Nqow.png)"></div> </div> </div>

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Phoenix Rising

There is

a necessary

silence to ash,

a kneeling silence;

it waits for you

to grow wings

… and suddenly

a wind moves

through silence,

ash scatters

wings take flight

a new journey

begins

I, like most people I suppose, have experienced my fair share of the raging fires of despair burning down to ash the promises I had grown in the forest of my life. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, a forest is reborn from a fire. But first, we must wait. We wait in a kneeling silence, a silence that both honours the loss(es) and waits for the ash to turn to the nutrients of rebirth.

Just as new life miraculously takes form in the forest, so do our wings grow once more, almost unexpectedly. It is the pull of life. There is an inevitability about it when we wait in this kneeling silence. This holy waiting is the mysterious chemical equation that transforms ash into the nutrients for renewal. It may not look the same for everyone but it has the same reverential quality whether rivers of tears flow or our tears are frozen in a tundra of pain. In time, life compels movement and ash gives way to growth, to new promises, and to new journeys.

I wrote this poem for myself a few years ago, but today I would like to dedicate it to my friend Peter Levesque. Ash is scattering…I see wings.

Please check out some of my other work: