The Heirophant

By Rae

I’ve always loved being a student. 
A student of the Dharma
diligent ways of the East, lists 
for a lucrative heart. A student of 
Rod Owens and Angel Kyoto Williams.
Of Tara Brach and Pema and Thay and Ram Dass yes, 
we walk each other home to that field of afternoon flowers 
following the sun and I have sat 
in the classroom of theory and insight, bowed to the saints of 
psychoanalysis, the altar of attachment, the cult of healing,
the bible of regulation. I have worshiped in the church of Parts,
where my eight-year-old self shares the merits of
transforming through imagination, sixteen-year-old-self 
reminds me how to fight back, and five-year-old self 
teaches me the power of her words. 

These long years and still
my mind speaks far more than it listens. and still 
my mouth lets tumble what’s most precious and personal 
at a speed that supersedes my ability 
to stay together. what a fractured self pours 
from my otherwise quiet mouth rots in the air 
and I want to turn away. From teachers, from guidance, 
from the clatter of knowledge and opinion 
and recede back into the warm dark. 

These days I’m listening to the raucous caw,
the huff and swipe of hungry beasts 
I’m listening to the wisdoms of my own loved ones
in their fear, their grief, their triumph, their release.

These days I sit at the feet 
of Lucille Clifton and Ada Limon and Anne Carson 
and Kaveh Akbar and I listen, I try to listen, I try to hear 
when Kaveh says:
“God's word is a melody and melody requires repetition.”

Maybe what’s needed is not to turn away 
But to chew and chew and chew
these jewels until they become
sweet nectar of stalwart truth taken
further into the body 
ribboning my ribs 
beaming my back
lining my hands with maps
until I can hear how 
the ancient stories have always

rattled my name.