The Song of a Shifting Heart

Down where the bends and the moss still weeps,

I stand, a woman caught 'tween what I was and what I’ll be.

The years in me, they stitch and tear,

Like old cloth pulling thin, where it once was fair.

My body a garden, wild, but no longer young—

The songs of the earth sing heavy where I’ve hung.

Once I was soft like sweet summer rain,

Now I’m a worn-out fiddle, played again and again.

My hips, like slow rivers, curve out and wind,

But the world calls them stones, unworthy, unkind.

The creak of my bones, they whisper of change,

Of childbearing seasons and the winds grown strange.

My belly, once flat, now swells like a hymn,

A temple of life, yet still, I feel dim.

I carried a child in the belly of my dreams,

Now she’s gone but the echoes still scream.

My breasts, once full, now hollow and sore,

Sag like the shutters on a house that ain’t yours.

I stare at the mirror and see what’s been lost,

Not the joy of my youth, but the high cost

Of love too deep, and grief too wide—

In this body, I have nothing to hide.

The world wants a woman smooth, sweet, and tight,

But I am the broken dawn and the long winter night.

I’m the loaf left stale, too tough to eat,

Once soft as butter, now bitter in defeat.

Each line on my face, each wrinkle I wear,

Is the song of the heart, raw and laid bare.

But deep in the roots, in the soil of my skin,

There’s a whisper of strength that will rise again.

I’ll walk through the thorns, through the rustling leaves,

Knowing my body’s a symphony, no one can grieve.

For though the world may look past and sneer,

I’m still a woman, and I still hold dear

The song in my chest, the beat of my blood,

A mother, a daughter, a spirit of mud.

The seasons turn, and the light will break,

This body may tremble, but it will never quake.

For I am the land, and the stars, and the sky,

The world may call me broken, but I rise, oh I rise.

And here I lie.