Some weeks no matter how hard I try, just don’t go well. I imagine you’re having weeks like this too — maybe not this one, maybe this one was good for you and your family. I hope so. But we should be able to say it out loud to each other, lean in to the strength of someone else’s good week or find some sanctuary of empathy nearby.

Ironically, the word I was lead to for 2020 was EMPTY. I have successfully resisted choosing ‘a word’ every other year, but for some reason, this word chose me. I like that it is both verb and adjective. The verb invites exploration in an unusual way – a little counter cultural in someways, against accumulation, toward simplicity. The adjective invites honesty.

This poem, like the week, was hard work. That won’t make it a good poem necessarily, but it means it tried to be honest. Maybe you’ll find something in it to be balm to any wounds you incurred from the hard edges you had in your week. All I know to do is let God (represented by the only capital letter I used in this poem in ‘Your’) be bigger than everything else and keep using my voice to keep the conversation with God active and open.

empty

let it spill over
like the water at a sluice gate

grieving the job’s confusion
and a home’s limitations

releasing summer vacation
and a hoped for adventure

fraying ragged
in the emotional storms

bleeding beyond the margins
and losing control

tendering each other
with touch and I’m staying – always

ceding ourselves back into
another fallow season

surrendering to sorrow
and more soul work

accepting the cup offered
draining it empty

my voice still speaking our story
lived beneath Your sky
unobstructed and boundless

© 2020 Laurel Archer