What Soothes You, Then? A Poem
What is your thing?
The thing that fills you up
When your soul grows parched and dry?
What brings you comfort?
Is it strawberries?
A sunset?
A long sip of an ice cold beverage
Or warm tea with honey and lemon?
Or is it a paintbrush
Dipped in acrylics or oils
Brushed across a canvas for only you to see?
Is it a butterfly
Landing softly on a flower
Drinking sweet nectar
Then flying off
As if it never was?
What warms you when you are cold?
Perhaps a campfire
As you cuddle with a loved one
Close enough to see one spark
Giving birth to more
Exploding upward
Grey smoke rising
A pop so close and loud
You feel like you’ve escaped gunshot
Dramatically thawed from the inside out
Scorching hot
But not close enough to burn
Or is it hot sand?
Perhaps on your cold feet
Or sizzling skin on the entire back of your body
As you flop onto the baking beach
After a springtime swim
In icy ocean water?
What quenches your thirst?
Is it a fizzy drink
Bubbling in a clear glass jar
As you watch the bubbles rise
Circular
Curling
Rising to the top
Where they cluster
Then divide
As your straw
Enters their field
Breaking them apart
And you feel those bubbles in you
All the way down to your toes?
What fills you up?
After you’ve taken cardboard box after box out to the curb
Or to the dump
Or to the goodwill collection box
Then turned back to hear your own echo
Against empty walls and hard floors,
Ripped off carpets
Emptied of memories as you prepare to begin again
What warms your heart?
On those mornings
when a full day lies before you
No plans
No guests
No distractions
From the inner voice that has waited so long to be heard?
What clears your mind?
When you think you are alone
and are not sure what you’re feeling, exactly
Is it loneliness?
Sadness?
Emptiness
Or quiet excitement
building at the prospect of nothing left to do?
What fuels your inner creator?
Emptiness?
Questions?
Encouragement?
Nature?
Sounds of beating waves against the sand like a shaman’s drum?
What is your name?
When there is no one left to remember who you were?
When your own babyhood has gotten washed away
As if by a flood
Tearing down the gutters
Rushing down the street
Picking up speed
Faster and faster
Past houses and driveways
Luring children
To rinse their ankles
Splashing in puddles as it passes
Before rain merges with overflowing
Streams and dreams
Heading to the sewer grates and out to the bay
And then the sun comes out again
So hot and parched and searing
That no one remembers.
What soothes your soul?
Is it a cool rag dipped in ice water and rose petals
Resting across eyelids with a gentle touch
A healing whisper
A wish
For all that is in your highest good?
Or perhaps an empty page
In a new journal
Or blank sketchbook
Freshly sharpened pencils
Pastels, crayons, charcoal
A soft spot to sit upon in the woods
Thick bark of a redwood friend
To lean up against
So you can rest and sketch
No one noticing you’ve gone missing
Until the sunset
Stretches across the sky
And the sun sinks down, saying
Adieu to another empty, open day?
What soothes you, then?
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Copyright © 2020 Laurie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photo credit: Maridav/Shutterstock
