HOW TO COPE WITH ABUNDANCE

by | Autumn 2022, Poetry

Or A letter to myself on my 39th birthday

Gather all the bowls—you’re going to need more of them in fact.
Maybe a couple baskets too.
And the jars you left in the pantry.
Unclench your jaw.

Unclench.

Prepare your catcher’s mitt
Be certain your fingers are unfurled
Posture yourself to receive
Posture yourself

Posture yourself.

Untie your boot laces
You will need the space around your ankles
To carry the surplus
Your arms no longer can

Untie.

Lay down your capitalist productivity
Your colonial conditioning
Your forced ways of being
You will need to be emptied

Lay down.

Cease your sewing machine leg
Your tapping heel can rest
You will need your strength
To receive

Cease. And receive.

You may have to get greater containers
Bigger rooms, bigger table, bigger yard
Certainly your heart must be able
to be stretched

Stretch.

It may be so overwhelming
there is a whole-body tremor
Then tears
Abundance moves through the body freely now
Now you no longer carry it all

Tremor.

Feel the buoy as it surfaces from underneath your tired body
You are light enough
To allow it to surface you
You are light enough to be carried by it
You are light enough to resurface
You are light

To get what is full
To get what is filling
To circulate
And one day
to extend

Extend to cope with Abundance.