Go as a River

by Shelley Read

trust the hours instead of fill them.

sometimes we simply cannot go back.

carrying your sorrows all alone isn’t strength, V. It’s punishment, plain and simple.

“Loss has nothing to do with what you deserve or don’t deserve,

what I had learned most about becoming is that it takes time.

I had been shaped by my kindred—my lost family and lost love; my found friendships, though few; my trees that kept on living and every tree that gave me shelter; every creature I met along the way, every raindrop and snowflake choosing my shoulder, and every breeze that shifted the air; every winding path beneath my feet, every place I laid my hands and head, and every creek like the one before me, rolling off the hillside, gaining strength in gravity, spinning through the next eddy, pushing around the next bend, taking and giving in quiet agreement with every living thing.

I must carry my whole past alongside the new space I had created in myself for hope.