It's Elemental

This Elemental Body
~Christa Mastrangelo Joyce

In the story of time, the earth body
whispers through me:
our stories are of each other.
Flesh and blood, bone 
and muscle, written onto an ancient scroll
that goes on and on.

Bless this body that is mountain, 
full of cracks and the etchings of time.
Bless its resolute fortitude, 
its intent to weather every season.

Bless this body that is river
full with longing to move toward a greater ocean, 
held in the banks of life’s edges, 
moving over obstacle and reflecting light.

Bless this body that is the wind howling
and pushing. Bless its winnowing efforts,
disrupting the marginalized
edges of the world’s stuck and dusty parts. 

Bless this body that is of fire, 
of transformation 
and the remembrance of ash. 

Bless the time that's formed this body
of elements, the earthen worry and grief
that laid it low and returned it 
to this knowing--it is part of
every great and flawed creation.

Bless this body as it creates, its mothering
and tending into growth.
And bless its destruction, the force
that knows it must also let go,
that all that's created must also die. 

Bless every cell and atom,
every breath and heartbeat. Bless its song 
and its long-held silence. Bless the streams of joy,
and the sadness that flows deep
from within.
Let this body remember,
and the remembering be blessed.  

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