Wendy Brown-Baez
Writing for Healing: words to light our way
Prerequisite
Pray with your whole body
Pause under the tall tree and look up.
Let your eyes be filled with green
and sky. Think of how those branches
stretch upwards to sunlight and how they
receive rain, how they catch starlight,
how they are refuge, how they tower over
people scurrying to work, slouching home
to evening. Notice the boulder.
Sit on its rough surface and hear
its ancient song of strength.
Plant your feet in grass as lush
as summer’s best frock. Slip a little
into a daydream. Breathe more deeply,
let the gratitude in your heart
crack it open. Take the serenity with
you to the bus stop, the counterbalance to
jarring wheels over broken streets.
Look at the other passengers with blessing.
Remember they are born with a light
within, ready to flare through the dark,
through days of awe, through change.
They are as fragile as you are,
they too have been wounded
on the sharp edges of the world.
Bless and bless no matter
how hard it is to do,
how much resistance you feel.
Be blessed by your heart breaking into
blossom and the pure blue
light of loving. Receive yourself like a
gift, a jewel, an offering, a debt that
cannot be repaid, only adored,
savored, given away.
published in Issue 34 of
Christmas Eve Walk 2019
This is the year it rained,
the year I exchanged
opening presents with grandkids
for a ticket to Santa Fe.
In years past we strolled, warmed hands
by farolitos, belting out carols
with strangers, stars strewn
across the vast New Mexican sky like glitter.
Adobe walls on Canyon Road were lined
by traditional brown bag luminarias
instead of the plastic ones with light bulbs
around the plaza.
We encountered friends,
were welcomed into private homes
for a glass of wine or cup of cider, inhaled
the scent of piñon fires.
This year the changes were jarring:
the drink carts at the entrance,
galleries decorated in electric lights,
the atmosphere festive but tarnished
and then the rain returned.
We had left the party,
taken a chance, hurried out into the
frosty night to walk in magical glow
but it began to drizzle
and by the time we reached
the last corner, we were soaking wet.
We hustled past the blinking reindeer.
Our friends were still feasting.
My coat slung over the shower rod wept.
In every selfie, blue shadows
lurked beneath our smiles.
published in Central Avenue Then & Now: A Community Poetry Experience edited by Dale Harris and Merimee Moffitt/ © 2024
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. – attributed to Peter Beneson, founder of Amesty International
When I leave the evening meditation
the man who sleeps next to the
windows in front of the church
is unfolding his bedding.
He disappears during the day.
Where does he go?
Is he among those sleeping
on the bus, the lightrail, does he line
up for a free meal?
I am told he was
settled somewhere inside,
and he came back, more than once,
a number of times.
It’s his slab of cement.
How does he bear seeing all of us inside,
taking off our heavy coats and greeting each other,
preparing for silence?
What is mine to do:
a few dollars here, a donation there,
it seems so meager when the need
is so great.
Stepping carefully so I do not slip on
the cold frosted stairs,
I wish my candle could light up
more than my corner of darkness.
© 2024 Wendy Brown-Báez
from Threading the Gold
