I am very sad about what happened yesterday with the shooting. I used to be a school teacher, and a close friend lives near the school where the shooting took place. I also have young children. My heart goes out to the parents, families, and the entire community where this tragedy occurred. What I find interesting, with me, is I have so much angst and fret over this shooting that the event has caused me to go into a type of mental hibernation.

I am feeling a loss deeply in my heart and physical body, but at the same time I feel myself distancing myself from the tragedy, as the media upsets me with their need for profit and exploitation of people’s lives and suffering.

Also, there are many other people suffering in the world, and I believe my focus should be on everyone, not just a select group of people.

I find myself confused by my emotions. And I am in essence escaping into a fantasy of love and lust with my muse. This is my place of retreat. I delve into another place, another life, a time where everything is about love and being connected in union.

At first glance I thought I was being heartless, concentrating on my lust and passion, after such a great tragedy, but then I realized I was doing what I know best, what I have always done when the emotions are turned up too high and when reality seems too unfair and unkind to remain a part of: I escape into my own world.

Today, I will likely listen to music, write poetry, avoid the media, and try to refocus on the light in our world.

This darkness has a second-degree of power, how it holds the ability and enticement to pull us all momentarily into the dark and sense of hopelessness and fear. I refuse to go there. For me, this means continuing my life as is, while carrying love for the nation and world in my heart.

I cannot focus on something so terrible. I see no benefit in this. I see benefit in focusing on love and the goodness in our hearts. The vast goodness we have as a collective. It troubles me terribly knowing that so much pain is broadcasted across the screens.

I pray for a time that “bad news” doesn’t sell. I am feeling somewhat lost and disturbed by some people’s reactions and focus.

I felt I had to explain myself, as my poetry seems off topic based on the nation’s current focus. However, I am on topic, in my own way, just trying to escape the heart pain in the best way I know how, without harm to myself, to others, and without further spreading sadness.

May the light of the world outshine the darkness. And may we find comfort in the beauty around us.

Golden Phoenix

If golden exists as word to behold

Then golden you be

The phoenix feathers of sunlight

Wrapped around my tethered heart

Your blanketing wings

Beckoning the insoluble desire

Voracious in form

Beneath my blood

Dissolve me, not

In the substance of you

But place me

As living testament

In flask upon burner

Fire upon me

With the twist of your mind

Bring fingers to the edges of my glass

And pierce me atop the flame

Of unspoken truth

Watch as I boil

Trembling

A liquid amber

Transformed into the crimson of deepest longing

Watch as I burn

Not within, but without

As captive trapped empty in transparent walls

Transform my yearning through your burning eyes

Delve with a sultry cusp of want

Feed upon me with your lost covenant

Leave me wanting and scorched

Then transpire the dreams beneath the dreams

Find where I stand thin and quaked

Outside of time

Outside the fire

In the smoke rising

In the air breathed

Take me into you, then

As all liquid dissolves and escapes

Take me into you

With lungs embrace

Blanketing babe

Beyond the flesh

Beyond the bone

Move me

As soothing river

To every crevice

Every corner

From the tips of extended fingers

To the edge of grounded heel

Until bursting

This phoenix child

Of Indigo eyes

And Ebony wings

Flies forth

Gasping for home

~~~

By Samantha Craft, Dec. 2012