Moving Through the Inner Rooms

I move through the rooms of my body,

where my past is preserved:

the little room of childhood,

shot through with golden sunshine,

the loft in the treetops of my teen years,

where music and dreams led me forth

into a brighter tomorrow,

the tight, windowless room of marriage,

that I fled upon waking,

the rambling, noisy rooms 

where I raised my children,

full of laughter, and kites,

and lake ripples.

At mid-life, I discovered

the seat of my Knowing,

living in the centre of my being.

Her voice was insistent,

would no longer be denied.

She plucked me from 

my circumscribed existence,

lifting me over the mountains to the sea,

where I lived in a driftwood shelter,

no roof, and no door.

From it, I gazed at the expansiveness

of sea and sky, limitless horizons: joy.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull flew

through my inner rooms. My heart felt

the thump of his wings

with every heartbeat.

I live in smaller rooms, now:

constrained by age and the body

that feels all of its years.

My eyes rarely leave the sky.

They caress the rounded tops

of the hills sheltering the harbour;

I catch my breath at their slopes,

bedecked by clouds.

My body is in love with the sea;

my heart, with remembering.

This vessel that has carried me faithfully,

this  frame  that has contained all of

my hopes and my dreams,

my laughter and tears,

now accommodates

all of the rooms of  Memory.

Tinged with amber light,

the past shines brighter

than the present, now,

as I make this circular passage

back to where my journey began.

for Sumana's prompt at Midweek Motiff at Poets United: Of the Body