Centre

Where do I find my centre in this world

Is it in my heart

Which I feel open like a flood

When I see a homeless man sitting

Out side our local store

With a sign saying

Hungry and homeless

Please help

And I reach inside my pocket for something to give

Which is in no way enough

And then leave

With the heartbreak of a broken world

Flooding my self

Is it in my gut

Which twists and turns

When I question if this is love or need

Or even if need should be okay

When I was never really able to need anyone

And had to bury needing so deep

That I forgot

Or became a sleepwalker

Or lied to myself

 

Where do I find my centre?

When you call out to me

And everything in me

Just wants to draw close to the silence

As the only place I feel relief

And yet I also know

How wonderful it felt

All those years ago to be held

To be so connected to someone

That you felt the boundaries of your skin

Melt

And all thoughts and separation disappear

But also how torn I could feel

Deep inside my centre when you left

For the ocean

And I found myself once again all alone

In that huge haunted holiday house of memories

Where the ghost of my father

And slaughtered aborigines called out to me

Every night

I remember

How many days I spent so alone

Feeling I could not walk the beach

And when I did

Could not bear to return another day

To that house of yawning emptiness

 

So where now do I find my centre?

When you finally want me in your life

I think the answer is

I have to find it between us

Somehow somewhere

In those moments of connection

When everything flows

And then when connection disappears

Return once again to the centre in myself

That is my sometimes home