A poem from The Fool’s Journey by Maria Cronjé

And she said:
There is a softening that happens
in growing 
and becoming
older.

I don’t see my reflection everywhere
made of fragments and glass
there is a fleshiness stretched over my bones
a softness.

And yet, there is tension there – 
or something else.
A density, like a root. 

I am also born from this earth
I have cried with her rivers
and danced to her beat
wept in her mountains
and escaped to her seas.

She breathed life into my life
I became the center of my world
as it is.
as it is.
As I am.
As I am.

And he said:
There is a hardening that happens
in growing
and becoming
older.

I see her reflection everywhere
made of fragments and glass
and I struggle to see her
the fleshiness, the softness, the blood
stretched over the bones.

There is tension between us, always
a glass that can break
a new offence, a past mistake. 

But past the tenseness 
is a denseness: a root.
An understanding that though her moods may shift
 and she is always ready to burst;
the feelings run like currents on
the surface of her skin
The enslavement of the body
that she finds herself in.

But underneath a stillness, 
a root that reaches deep. A stillness lies beneath 
the shifting seasons and her feet.

She is the center of her world. 
As it is.
As it is.

~ Maria Cronjé