'Rings' by Susan Cartwright-Smith

A really enjoyable chance to play...using collagraph prints to illustrate poems. This one is for rings, by local poet Susan Cartwright-Smith.

Rings

The rain stings like nettle rash
And I am in and part of this world
And I am made of it and part of it
And will become it once again.
We are shining, made of muons , sparkling briefly in our firmament.
The edge of me is blurred
I pass myself in pieces
On to others and achieve
An immortality through
Curl of lip or eyebrow raised and
Words both said and writ
Like the lines scored in my forehead
Given to me by my father
Passed along to son
I am not alone or insular
Nor am I standing still
And I feel the earth cry out as I am
Travelling in time
Know the pain a mother feels when she sees
A child to suffer or is suffered unto from them
Ripping pieces passed along .
I am crying for the time I see with others eyes
The heart strings of my web
Reverberate
I am not within a sacred circle
I am goddess, maiden mother crone and born again into interweaving spirals cycles
Not in confines and we are all one.
Not bound or shuttered, joined. We go back into earth and rivers wash us out to sea.
We are returned to air and to the stars returning as a speck, a shimmer, a gleam in someone's
eye.
And we fall upon another in the rain,like nettle stings, and begin again.