Bearing Witness - Laura Weaver

[Larry Robinson]

Bearing Witness 

Sometimes we are asked to stop and bear witness:
this, the elephants say to me in dreams
as they thunder through the passageways 
of my heart, disappearing
into a blaze of stars. On the edge 
of the 6th mass extinction, with species 
vanishing before our eyes, we’d be a people 
gone mad, if we did not grieve.  

This unmet grief,
an elder tells me, is the root 
of the root of the collective illness 
that got us here. His people
stay current with their grief—
they see their tears as medicine—
and grief a kind of generous willingness
to simply see, to look loss in the eye, 
to hold tenderly what is precious, 
to let the rains of the heart fall. 

In this way, they do not pass this weight on
in invisible mailbags for the next generation 
to carry. In this way, the grief doesn’t build 
and build like sets of waves, until, 
at some point down the line—
it simply becomes an unbearable ocean.

We are so hungry when we are fleeing 
our grief, when we are doing all 
we can to distract ourselves 
from the crushing heft of the unread 
letters of our ancestors.
Hear us, they call. Hear us.

In my dreams, the elephants stampede 
in herds, trumpeting, shaking the earth.
It is a kind of grand finale, a last parade
of their exquisite beauty. See us, they say.
We may not pass this way again.  

What if our grief, given as a sacred offering, 
is a blessing not a curse?
What if our grief, not hidden away in corners,
becomes a kind of communion where we shine?
What if our grief becomes a liberation song 
that returns us to our innocence?
What if our fierce hearts
could simply bear witness?

     - Laura Weaver


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