Anthem At Spring Solstice

I started writing this poem many years ago. Images were pouring through me into my journal as I struggled to name my longings. These images, in turn, guided me to a clearer recognition of the difference between embodied, sensual presence and the abstract, analytical orientation of my earlier life. This was process work more than poetry, as I reflected on the origins of my own frozen places, that I could feel more clearly as I continued to thaw. This work was also an opportunity for me to reflect on some of the recurrent images in my dreams, where I wandered, cold and alone, through the basement of the hospital where I trained as a medical doctor, caught in the irony of a disembodied medical system that sought to fix people while ignoring the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of those who were supposed to be healing others. As I brought the torrent of words into poetic form, I also heard the echo of some lines from a poem by Adrienne Rich, Transcendental Etude: 

But there come times—perhaps this is one of them—
when we have to take ourselves more seriously or die;
when we have to pull back from the incantations,
rhythms we’ve moved to thoughtlessly,
and disenthrall ourselves, bestow
ourselves to silence, or a severer listening, cleansed
of oratory, formulas, choruses, laments, static
crowding the wires.

The writing of this poem has been an attempt of mine to bestow myself to a severer listening… cleansed of oratory, formula or lament.  It is one attempt, and the attempts continue. For a long time I struggled with the question of whether to put this poem into the world. I held the question — when does our process work become art? At some point I recognized the perfectionist critic behind this question, and a different question came: Will this writing be of use to others? And I believe the answer to this question is Yes: this might be of use to others who are walking a similar path. I hope that readers will recognize a portion of their own experience in this poem, and take heart and sustenance. 

Anthem at Spring Solstice

I can’t live in a house
of glib abstraction
eat platitudes or blind faith
can’t rest my head 
on a host of illusions
or ramble thru gardens 
of ancient bloom

but 

I am hungry for enchantment
hungry for song to bring life to words 
life to bones
parched, brittle and sharp

What is it I long for?

 seduction desire tropical heat
 light-hearted ease and lazy repose
warm sand and ocean-scented breeze 
cricket choruses after dark 
and balsam wood
starry nebulae in desert sky
campfire-lit faces, whistling and guitars
soft pressure of an arm, and a hand that doesn’t tire 
of holding mine 

I’ve lived on the border of the country of trauma
breath and dream in thrall 
to alien logic
woman-child 
lost within hospital corridors
lost to her body in a body-repair shop
never enough heat 
to overcome the old pattern, the frozen deadlock
fear of speaking and the need to speak to be of value

But I want prayer  
not complaint
stillness, not hush

 Sacred music echoes through the cathedral
the space throbbing long after chords released
and choir’s taken flight

 Ache of aloneness overcome by beauty 

 I want to be a prayer 
for the small crisp and new 
a soft wordless prayer 
for the broken heart seated alone
hoping no one will notice-
a prayer that wraps her in blue silk
and rocks her for hours

 a prayer for this moment
as if there is no 
other moment

 a waterfall, a cascade, a song 

my hair is wild, life flows through my fingers

Dr. Keren Vishny is a psychotherapist and certified Natural Dreamwork Practitioner. She is also a teacher and workshop facilitator affiliated with the CG Jung Center, Evanston Illinois, and the Marion Woodman Foundation.