Saturday 14 May 2011

The Open Window




There are others in the waiting room,
rehearsing their symptoms.
Enter here and you become a patient,
broken, ailing, someone who needs mending. 
Hoping for relief, a pill, a kind word,
hoping for a good day, 
when the expression ‘bedside manner’
is a synonym for kindness.

Trying not to listen to their conversations, 
the repetitive chatter of the radio,
the disembodied voice of the programme's host 
and his relentless cheer irritating my consciousness.

Why I have come, I couldn’t say.
I need no help, I am whole, I am strong.
I have nothing to say.
A flood of words to prove the point.

The healer’s face, kind and compassionate, 
listens intently, 
eyes clouding over, softening.
Her quiet voice probing.

I look away.

I will not cry.

Haunting memory, long-buried pain, 
‘face me’, they cry, ‘see me’, ‘feel me’.
A helpless child revisits aching loneliness. 
Thoughtless words cut deep, the wounds unhealing.

See, 
she is falling,
catch her,
hold her close,
comfort her
help her. 
Accept the hurt and,
strong now,
heal the child you were.

The time will come
when all is well.

A window opens.




34 comments:

  1. Excruciatingly beautiful. The window opens because of the steps you took to advocate for, and love the child within.

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  2. Absolutely wonderful, Friko.
    — K

    Kay, Alberta, Canada
    An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel

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  3. sounds a lot like the kids i work with...i hope they get the help they need...

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  4. Beautiful Friko. Beautiful.

    Anna :o]

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  5. So lovely Friko, and much of it speaks to me, personally, as I am that patient in need of kindness and a good Bedside Manner most of the time!!
    The window opens... I do like that.

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  6. I love that picture, it drew me right in. And then the words did...

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  7. Absolutely amazing. Such feeling and empathy. You are writing gal, really writing these days. Get em published. Go, Go, Go.
    QMM

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  8. Beautiful Friko. We are all little girls within, all these strong women who have grown a shell over childhood hurts. We all need for someone to care, someone to have a "good bedside manner" so we can stare those demons down!

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  9. Wow... such a powerful write. Speaks tenderly, yet with such strength of the nurturing need of the little girl. Beautiful!

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  10. ein grossartiges Poem, eine schmerzvolle Welt abgelegt in Worten zur Linderung und zum eigenen Verstehen... beeindruckend und berührend.

    Dir einen guten und schönen Tag, liebe Friko!

    Renée

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  11. So lovely how this builds, like an opening flower, to that open window. It's all I hope for really, a window. And it's really all we have.

    The digging is painful, but once the freedom is tasted, you can't go back!

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  12. Hello:
    This is such a very moving and atmospheric piece of writing which leaves one with much to think about. The subject matter is one with which we are all too familiar, but the note of hope at the end confirms that all will be well.

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  13. Hello [again]:
    We are so sorry to see that our comment on your lovely post on the Shropshire countryside appears to have become a victim of the recent Blogger fiasco.

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  14. A beautiful poem Friko, absolutely exquisite. Dianne

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  15. Line after piercing line.

    I have nothing to say.
    A flood of words to prove the point.

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  16. Das Bild und die Worte sind grossartig!
    I love the combo and the mood you created.

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  17. This is gentle and sad...help me a little...is the child hurting from psychological pain...things said or is this a real disease that the "child" has hoped was not there?

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  18. This healing sounds like hypnosis--regressing back to your chidlhood and maybe smoothing out some rough edges there. The poem is very evocative and tender as is the artwork. I would say the healing helped as the window is beginning to open... Lovely and resonates with me, Friko. Love

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  19. Sometimes it feels like some wounds will never heal; other times we go along fine and an old hurt opens up again (sorry, I know that's not the window you mean!)

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  20. Heartfelt, poignant, beautifully expressed. Speaking makes it real - and acceptable.

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  21. Healing the child we were — perhaps that is the leitmotiv of our adult journeys. As always, I applaud your courage and raw honesty, your steadfast refusal to step away from the truth of our lives. Well done, Friko.

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  22. I love your words for their many layers and possible meanings a reader might find in his/her dancing interpretations. Hurtful childhood memories. It even occured to me that these windows we blog in also fit some of your descriptions.

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  23. Wonderful, Friko! Heal the wounded child and let her see the open window...

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  24. your first commenter said it so well: excruciatingly beautiful.

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  25. I was thinking of putting "Whew!" because that is how it made me feel. I held my breath whilst reading, then breathed out with relief and understanding at the end. Thank you.

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  26. Beautiful, Friko. And true in every sense.
    Thank you.

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  27. I really liked this, Friko - one of your best pieces, I thought.

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  28. Bravo my friend! Your courageous life journey is a privilege to behold. You are extraordinary and much appreciated, F.


    Thrilled to be BACK-

    Warm Aloha from Honolulu

    Comfort Spiral

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  29. So evocative and vulnerable. Thank you.

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  30. You are whole because you can face
    the image both in the mirror
    and in the reflecting pool of the
    inner corridors of your self,
    and whoever you visited,
    real or imagined, to put your
    fevered consciousness into focus,
    it has burst forth bang on,
    and the child within, the creativity,
    bathos, beauty, will not dim,
    cannot dim, like life, like spirit,
    it is subatomic and glowing with
    infinite playfulness and wisdom;
    and out the window there are the
    ruins of the castle keep with Beano
    frisking through the hedgerows,
    and five kinds of birds calling
    your name.

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  31. Deep soulful words. The healing has begun.

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