compassion

Early Morning Photowalk

| Sheree
Chirton Dene Park

I’ve been resting. Resting for me looks like house and dog sitting for the weekend. It‘a getting up early for dog walks and then doing it again and again for the rest of the day. Getting out and stretching our legs.

Chirton Dene Park

And I’m not complaining. It’s good to be out there greeting the light. Well what little there is. As the fog came in during the night and stayed. Creeping into the daytime too.

Royal Quays Marina

We get into a rhythm Mila and me on our walks. Short lead near roads. Long leads in the park with expansive greens. She knows though to stop and wait while I take pictures of things that take my fancy. That make me slow down, stop and look closer.

There is still so much beauty left for the season. Still so much colour which is even more striking and startling as they cry out from the grey. The fog. The chill.

Saltkisses Misses

| Sheree
Royal Quays, North Shields, 28 November 2022, 07.44

I miss your saltkisses, your cold caress. As I welcome winter and I’m reminded to rest, I will come to you with arms open wide, ready to kiss the day with you again.

A Deep Attachment To This World

| Sheree

“The most sublime act is to set another before you.” William Blake, Proverbs of Hell

Let me honour you. Hold you up to the light. Explore, examine and praise your simple beauty, your blessed grace.

Shiny, hard nut. Chestnut. Conker. Like my heart, you will soften and give under the right conditions, under the right love.

Who do you belong to? Where do you belong? I ask you, but really I ask myself.

It’s rude to stare, to touch but I’m attached to you whether I want to be or not. We are both citizens of the Earth. This Earth.

I’m not alone in this world I’m connected to you. Chestnut to brown. Brown to chestnut. Skin to skin. We are kin.

And I feel your hurt too.

In the Earth of her Voice is the Remnants of Fire

| Sheree

If I allowed curiosity and love to seep through the wounds, I wouldn’t be here now at the page trying to make sense of it.

A black girl walks through the meadow, enters the dark woods and forfeits her life. And I can’t but think if she was white …

Trust. Always difficult for me to hold, like light on burnt leaves. Like the coming of winter any day now.

The race talk, an accumulation of cautionary tales told through time, she, with earth in her voice, filled the void of rage with what was right for her soul. Joy.

My Mother was the Moon, the Earth, the Song

| Sheree

As I pull into the roadside drenched in memory, I practice breathing. Cycle through the minutes trying to gain ground.

She was silence behind her smiles. Behind her ample flesh. I burnt down our bonds because she dropped before her time.

I’ve too much fire to ever accept her truth. Too much sense to feel the moon held her fullness.

Late into the night standing by the window, she waited for my return. Without fail. I took her love and joy without a backward glance.

I am dark. Too dark. But meaning comes with the light. My own light, learning to shine from the inside out.

I wish she had her chance. I take her picture sitting in the grass amongst the trees and seal it into memory.

The earth she could not give me. She didn’t know how as she laughed her soul into existence.

I am red. All of it. And not at all. But with eyes wide open, body claiming space daily, I listen to her song and bathe in the moonlight.

In the dark with my own sacredness

| Sheree

So I close my eyes. Allow the dark to fill. Feel flaky dust around my ankles and know they are ashes.

Everything has burnt down. To leave fertile ground from which to stand. To rise. But when?

I am indigo. I am not indigo. The stars are not enough. And yet they draw my eyes and heart.

I came close to love reaching from the shadows of a mountainside where women of my family fell.

Memories and pain etched on the skin of my bones, I know what I need and want but I don’t know how or who.

Raw, I cannot dream enough colour to hold me. And yet ripe full of longing, I walk the landscape holding my power with an open heart and listen to the blood rain blooming.