Just An Image

NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day 13

Just An Image

What does one say
of an image like this,
presented as a gift
filled with a lifetime
of meanings?

Memories explode
like wings unfolded
with fierce focus
of singular intent
and purpose.

Gentle hands that
reach to embrace
wild trust surrendered
in willing act
of acceptance.

Twenty years later:
I am once again
swamped by feelings
and completely
undone.

Elizabeth Crawford 4/13/2019

Process Notes: Yesterday, I went looking for a book on one of the many book shelves, here in my office. Was drawn to a manila envelope standing against its end wall. Opened it up to find this sketch, done over twenty years ago. She suffered with Multiple Personality Disorder and it was one of her alters who had come to me asking if I could show him how to draw hands. Something I was very awkward at doing. I showed him what I knew and then got out an instruction book on how to draw certain things. He took it and several days later brought me this sketch, telling me it was about our relationship. It was she who had shown me how to find the hawks that populate much of this region, and spent untold hours as we tried to get a photo, most of which were no more than black dots against endless blue sky. Later, when I was teaching, many of my students thought I called them to me simply by being present to the moment. Many years later, long after she left my household, she sent me a photograph, taken in her backyard.

Photograph by J.G.

When I came on this morning, as is my new habit, I went in search of an image for inspiration. And immediately found that sketch. Although the hawk is my totem, a spiritual messenger come to guide and teach, for the first time, as I wrote the poem, I realized that sometimes ones totem animal might come in a human form.