Prologue

In Your Bones is a collection of poems that grew in the dark… 

They grew quietly over years out of places they were told not to grow, popping like mushrooms covered with layers of dark words intended to keep them down. They grew anyway. They are glimpses, real and imagined, that I tried to capture in the light for a fleeting moment. 

A well meaning friend once asked why I didn’t just burn them up thinking they had to weigh me down, but, the truth is, I wrote them out of the amazement at how profound and beautiful it is to heal. I wrote them in honor of skin, bones and hearts that somehow seem to know how to mend themselves like starfish growing new arms. For me they celebrate how, by simply shedding light on something, it can lose its hold over you. And that creative process brought me a lot of joy. Joy in letting go. Joy in putting something unspeakable into words. Joy in sharing. They became colors I stroked onto a canvas. 

But, I am not these poems. Once any poem works its way to paper it has run its course and is ready to be offered up to another. So I offer them up for your consumption, and you get to do with them what you will. No need for judgment, comparison or, worst of all, pity. May the only burning that takes place be the flames that burn away secrets and shame so healing and hope can take root. 

May they fuel us all forward to find the words that are ours and ours alone. May we try to spread words of healing to outweigh those that are so much heavier and really do try to weigh us down. May we tip the scales towards the words we all deserve to say and to hear.”

This is the Prologue from this book in its entirety which sets the stage for a deep dive into these poems, where each one came from, and to the promise of where each one may go in order to tip those scales. May it be so. ~dpd

Writing/Meditation Prompts:

• Click in the boxes and listen to the Writing Workshop: Poetry Preserves 1 video to set the stage for getting started. Videos 2 and 3 can be found on the “Prologue” page for Tiny Lights.

• Feel yourself alive and growing. What kind of environment do you find yourself in? 

• Is there something buried in your life to unearth?

• What is it that someone might encourage you to “burn up” and be done with? Is there something that really does deserve to be burned up? Consider making a ‘pros and cons’ list to decide what stays and what goes.

• Are the scales in your life tilted toward negative words that drown out what you need to hear, or the positive words you need most? 

• More power to you as you tip the scales in words, writing, and/or meditation towards those you “deserve to say and to hear”.