acceptance – Sigrid Mortensen

Poetry

The Fixer

April 29, 2023

by Sigrid E. Mortensen

The fixer.

The tinkerer.

The repairman.

The fiddler.

The meddler.

The taker-apart.

The reassembler.

The one with the calm connection

The perspective

The insights

The inspired words

That ease what’s broken.

The one who hears the noises

The aches

The screeching cries, and who

By disassembling

Cleaning

Clearing

And piecing back together

Eases the fears

The angers

The frustrations

The disappointments

That had been clogging up the gears.

So skilled was I

That I would oil every squeak

Even before it began

Spending more

And more of my time

Anticipating every soreness

Circumventing every pain.

And yet

My eyes grow cloudy

And my fingers clumsy

And I can no longer fix

Every complaint.

Despite my best efforts

The noises return

And scream fix me!

Fix me!

I yearn to help

And yet

I begin to understand

As my ability wanes

And my maturity waxes

That not every break

Is meant to be mended,

That not every intervention

Is a gift,

That sometimes the grit in the cog

Must work its way through

On its own,

That part of the grand design

Of this glorious machine

Is to allow the dirt in

And by sticking the gears

And jamming the pulleys

New pathways are grazed and gouged and formed

And beautiful new mechanisms

Are born.

The oyster’s sand is that from which the

Precious grows.

If I am brutally honest

I also nod to those times

When by taking it apart

I broke it more

Made it worse

Deepened the sorrow

Foiled my best intentions.

So finally

I retire

Step back

Look from a distance

And begin to see beauty in the rusty patches

Hear harmony in the creaks and groans

Notice the miracle of new life

Spontaneously sprung

From the remnants of what I once fled,

From what I once worked

So hard

To avoid,

From the ravages of time

And life

And entropy

And wrong turns

And missed opportunities

And crossed wires

And misfires

And parts worn through with age.

These are no longer my job to salvage

Indeed

Decay is the fertile ground

That feeds the desire

For scrapping the dysfunctional

For releasing old designs

For beginning

Finally

Anew.

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Poetry

Combination

February 24, 2023

By Sigrid E. Mortensen

When the dial glides easily

With a flick of the fingers….

When it spins just the right amount

With smooth, quiet ticks

In just the right direction

To land on the perfect

Destination

Numbers only now remembered….

When barrels tumble

And give

And yield,

And metal clicks

And sighs,

And with a satisfying clunk

The lock falls open

Heavy and cold

In the palm of your hand

And you stare at it

As startled at it is

That it surrendered ground so quickly….

When you can slide that crooked shaft

Soundlessly from its rusty latch

And the heavy door

Held shut for years

Opens with a whisper….

When sunlight streams through the opening

Motes dancing on beams

And blinds your face with warmth

And recognition….

When all resistance falls away,

When muscles long held tense

For reasons you can no longer quite recall

Melt into acceptance….

When you know

Without a solitary doubt

That you never had a reason to fear

Or worry

Or fret….

When you remember,

“Oh, yes!

This is how I let go!

And this is what it feels like to

Invite those shy gremlins of fun

And play

And joy

To peek from behind the corner

And run into my world

Skipping

And scrambling

And giggling,

Glad to be a part of my game….”

It is in these moments

That you free yourself from the barriers that

Only you

Could have placed on the gates

Keeping you safe from

Who

Knows what?

It is then that you remember

Who you are

And why you’re here

And all you have to offer.

It is then that you unlock

The full potential

Of your creative

Genius

And bask in the

Openness

Of your

Unguarded

Heart.

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