Poetry, Pandemic Stories
Transformation
Settling our roots into a new reality
If I were a laurel tree, would you turn to wind, brushing my leaves with tenderness, caressing my branches with your breath.
Like Daphne, we are now transformed, torn from the world we knew to be true, searching for new beginnings and lost endings, and forming new bonds with the very air we breathe, and with the soil beneath our feet, and with the people who haunt this earth, searching for meaning in streams of enchantment. We’re transfigured, transmuted, dancing with the soft breezes of time.
We inhabit a new realm, one kissed by change, by the flame of necessity, of re-creation, of memories lingering from another lifetime, of whispers long gone, of the songs of the earth and of the creatures she’s birthed and watched die while eons fly into the dust of the setting sun.
And we’ve begun to find freedom in heaviness of limb, in a new reality settling into our roots.
Our soft breasts are now bark. Our hearts beat with the trees, with the laurels and the beeches, fleeing from the axes of men, and we run, and we run, hand in hand into the future.
*Inspired by the story of Daphne and Apollo and by the “Will, transformation” section of Rainer Maria Rilkes’ “Sonnets to Orpheus.”
You might also enjoy:
A poem inspired by my delight in Mary Oliver’s poetry and by my sadness at her passing:
A little musing about Quantum Physics and spirituality:
A dreamscape:
Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies). Erika is also an editor for Dharma Talk.
Poems, stories and photos ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.
