I’ve been sweet on the art of encouragement for as long as I can remember,
feeling somersaults of thanks for every bit of balm
that helps a soul get out of bed another morning and pull on fresh clothes
over dreams burned down to the nub.
Like gentle shoes for blistered feet,
so a broken heart can go on making fresh tracks in hard places anyway.
I’ve received them like clean cold water in hot swelter,  words
that give my bones a new song,
and breeze that makes my breath
churn fresh hope
and I love it
when someone
takes
the
time.

And so
I’ve cultivated this thing
until it blooms hardy in my garden
because I’ve struggled through drought
and have come to carry water everywhere I go.
I’ve felt it deep how a drink of clean healing river
can be tipping point in a full blown collision between life and death and
I’d drive a watertruck of it for you,  if I could – a freight train of encouragement
coming ’round the mountain of your dry places
until you’re filling up on love
that writes a stream of poems across your weary back,
easing air back into places that somehow forgot how to breathe.

I want to splatter it across the thirst of your sky,
a waterfall of welcome
for who you are,
that even in pain and conflict,
in the beauty and the bruising,
it’s sweet magic that you’re even here and this place just
wouldn’t be the music without you.

Wherever you are,  in whatever way,
I honor every thump of your heart
– such a beautiful rhythm.
And every brave step that you take or even weigh
that inches you toward your next have-a-go.

In the noise and gravel of this critical climate,
oh please hear your name called affectionate across the clamor
by smiling voice so choked up with affection
that it can’t keep quiet over the art of who you are.
Over all of your brilliance and bobbles
there hums a love too strong to be silenced,
and though it crackles across the static on the line,
it’s there for you to open like a letter from your long ago
and not yet
that in the quaking of this season
you are cherished,  held and seen.

Passing the note,  love ……..your belonging runs deep.

“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic
than to love people.”
– Vincent Van Gogh

Another giveaway this week – I have some new journals to share
and want to offer up the first one to you.
Just plunk a comment in the box and I’ll draw from the names next week.
9I’m back from making something soon ready to share
and will be around regular again now:)