Delicate Hope

She was in the depths of transition and change in this “concentrated time.”

As we sat for our Listener Poet session, she opened to the grief of the non-traditional losses she has been experiencing. She expressed that the losses had left her humbled, but also unseen and without community ritual. She soaked in the witnessing of the moment as she tried to make sense of the dichotomies of emotion. She longed to feel the potential of a new way of being on the other side of this grief experience.

Listener Poet Zina Mercil

Department of Health and Social Welfare

August 2022

Fingers lightly trace “HOPE” into the fog on the mirror, how quickly it disappears.

I am left to stare at myself in the reflection.

(invisible)

Grief.

No one else is here with me.

Sacrifices I didn’t know I was about to make,

can I trust my own intuition?

I want to dance and run embodied in this grief.

Yet here I stand.

The delusions and fantasies of yesteryear,

I am grateful to dispel.

But am I ready to stand empowered?

In reality, humbled.

I am wary.

Wary to feel hope.

Delicate, tender, fragile hope.

What I want to be true:

I will find a way to love what’s on the other side.

What I think I know is true:

I feel neglected and can still be empowered.

What I know is true:

This is me in the mirror.

Bearing witness to myself.

Seen in Delicate Hope.

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