What Spirit Will Do.
{Photo via rmichelson.com}
By Jena Strong.
Push through cement,
an unstoppable weed acting out,
cracking the dreamless,
breaking the rule-bound,
and refusing pavement as progress.
Stage a protest,
evade the status quo,
rail against the arbitrary decrees
of group-think and follow-the-leader,
smash against the rocks
and destroy institutional sand castles.
Brand you as a rebel
and a troublemaker,
squeeze the pearls
and spit them out polished,
make a mess of common etiquette
and have no regard
for the established hours of business.
Loom over your days
like a hungry shadow
demanding your attention,
edge you towards risk,
push you over the cliff,
and catch you in the free fall.
Bend and twist
and source the gnarly dark
and strain against the windows
leaving shards of glass in the driveway.
Then sweep the glass,
so that you walk out barefoot
without cutting your flesh.
Walk barefoot into the world,
onto the weed-strewn sidewalk,
down the street
and into encounters with strangers
whose stories you’d never otherwise know.
(Reject Pretty because Pretty is for pussies.)
Bridge the underworld
with the circle of ragtag prayers
who stand in a circle
at dusk lighting candles,
command that you be joyful
when you do not feel joy,
create in the margins
of the boring yellow pad,
and wander off, following the light
until you are lost and found.
Break up and rebound
and be the arms of home
and the breath of life
that rebuilds your bones
when they’ve been ground to dust.
Strip away your angry
and insist on your raw,
be the writing on the wall,
a descendant of God
and God herself saying,
‘Go, Go, Go’
into the sanctuary
of your fury and frustration.
Go and let the song sung there
be the heat that melts you
first to tears then to action.
Know when it knows.
Have the coordinates of your heart
tattooed on its palms
no matter how many times you move.
Walk with its feet
and talk with its hands,
and stay silent for days, weeks, months,
sometimes years, decades, eons.
Time travel speaking
all the dead languages,
embodying the myths
and not comprehending these rules
of which you speak.
Alternate between ballsy swagger
and soft cooing, unassuming,
sometimes downright invisible,
a scull swift on the river,
a skull on the alter,
a moose crossing,
a roadside bouquet.
Mirror your mirror dance,
your ancient well,
your Sabbath bride,
and your ass on a cushion.
Take the reigns
and drop them when you flail,
gallop away with your briefcase,
and carry you bareback off-trail.
Surprise you and break you,
fling you from the confines
of what you learned was possible,
heal you where you thought
you were broken,
return home with you,
whole.
*****
Jena Strong is a poet, photographer, and tightly wound free spirit whose daily practice is to wake up, make the coffee, and see what happens. She is also an ice-cream snob with soft spots for skinny-dipping, sugar scrub, working up a sweat, napping, sunny Spanish-speaking places, and her fiancée — not always in that order. She has been coaching clients through personal and career transitions since 2003, and has self-published two collections of poetry and prose, Don’t Miss This and The Inside of Out. Jena writes about showing up to life as it happens at JenaStrong.com. Her books are available for purchase, and she shares her photos here. She currently lives and works in Amherst, MA with Mani Canaday and three of their five daughters.
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