Pieces
Image: The Splash - By Ruth Calder Murphy

Sometimes, it’s all we can do to hold the pieces of ourselves together…
And keep on going, and sometimes we need to do this— to be strong and show ourselves that we can.
At other times, I think the greatest gift we can give ourselves is to let go: to let the pieces explode and scatter, to sit in the eye of our own storm, in the centre of the orb created by our atoms flying outwards, leaving us all at sea and not knowing which way is up or down—and there, to simply breathe.
To breathe deeply—in the moments of not knowing, or fighting, or pushing, just to breathe and recognise that in all these pieces of me—the broken pieces, the polished pieces, the smashed up, bashed up pieces and the prized pieces—my soul shines and is precious. That even when all I can do is sit amongst the shards until I can, once again, build them into something new and wonderful. Even then, I am valid and whole. Even in pieces, I am enough.
Pieces
by Ruth Calder Murphy
All in pieces
to be put together again,
again...
Pieces of my mind,
flung to the four winds,
pieces of my soul, singing in the stars,
pieces of my heart in the keeping
of weeping people,
pieces of my dreams,
flowing gently down the stream
and dissolving to the ocean’s arms…
All in pieces and scattered
over land and sea and sky,
so desperately deep and impossibly high -
too wide and too removed
to find myself again.
All in pieces - fragmented me -
looking for peace
in the spinning of Infinity,
to bring it back
and alchemy the cracks
in my mosaic quiddity…
All in pieces and every piece complete -
every one replete -
a perfect facet
of my soul...
Peace is here, and Mystery,
the turmoil - and the miracle - of this humanity:
in every piece, the whole of me,
and I, in pieces,
whole.