Anger Palette

If could just glimpse

My palms

Open my tight fist

of anger

Long enough to examine

The Mystery

Of my elusive rage

Study the life lines that merge and part

With love and loss,

With unexpected,

Unchoosen changes

on my Way

Speak tenderly to the spaces in between clenching and surrender

If I could just glimpse

The color palette of energy of my work for justice

If I could feel the texture of the coat of my mama bear

If I could hear the tones of my wailing to Nature

“I want her to live”

I would paint the palette

The palette of my anger—

of my Life affirming response to all that might oppress Life

to express my anger

not at Death, not in constriction of fist

Yet as an open palm of reverence for being Alive

A prayer somewhere deep inside my mitochondria

dissolving my illusion of separateness

while kindly holding the boundary of self long enough to behold—

Behold the glory

Of ALL-that-is

And still kiss all the different flavors

of rage on my fingers,

Fingering painting in the sands of time

**inspired by the line in the poem instructions for having a soul by Joseph Fasano

“Tell a child you do believe her anger is true”