The following will be a very personal, private and poignant part of what has come to influence who and whom I am and I invite you now to join me in a conversation of what it is to be human and suffer loss. ...and so BenTwig bows his head...
The Dirt from Bosnia
"Drowning in the chaos of a waveless ocean, the vast emptiness filling my breath with hopelessness, a sunken ship with no treasure, I fall because I see!" SGT B.J.T 1997
I have experienced death, been in its presence, in its shallow darkness. My eyes swollen in anguish, my breath gasping short, stuttered, a whisper of life, as the bodies of Bosnia filled yet another empty hole in the dirt, with the worms, the centipede, the beetle and my nose burnt with a stinging fire, my sinuses draining like tears from mother earth, whom unwillingly excepted them.
The burden so great, my ears winced with the crying screams from the loved ones left behind, down on their hands and knees, eye level with the dirt, where the grass fell away to sunken earth, searching, searching for a remembered face, a peice of clothing, a shoe......a child....and my soul wept in death's presence for I was beholden to its grasp upon my conscience, my myths, my illusions and my service to its cause, but no longer!
For though death still lingers, a heavy fog tearing life from sight in different places, in different ways...but still the same smell, same shrilling cries, same earth....only different faces in the pile and one more orphan of war to hold and whisper lies of being alright, while the truth is that life is weeping in our presence, tired, weak and worn from our obsession to dig holes in the dirt and fill them with our guilt, our biases, our differences and our hatred of that which is told us is our enemy!
It has been years since this specific day in my life and I, now back home, children and loved ones embraced, safe, secure, words with no armor, I carry the dirt from Bosnia within me, to bury my own suffering from death's presence, for I was unable to stop it....can you? Can I now? I pray, I love!
Benjamin Twig
I have come to experience some sad deaths at a personal level in recent years. As a child, did not even know yet, that there was depth inside, I would pray and recite in prayers all those that I knew at 7 years old. At the end of all my prayers, I always included the Whole World so I could not leave anything out and I sensed the suffering of thiis world, AS I suffered so much inside! For some years now, I understand where this came from! The burning desire to create World Peace and end all of the misery I felt so acutely as a suffering child-in the soul, A world suffering inside my soul. Guess that is called Transference both ways. But now it is called Mission. Thank you for reminding me of this memory, Ben. Peace
ReplyDeleteSo happy today that I found your blogs, Jane22. Me above, also. Very Inspiring for me to read your ideas. It must be horrible inside to have had to see such suffering so close. I understand, I think. Jane22
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