Deborah Seale Poet Free verse

Process

Standing here with nothing

but the clothes on my back,

surveying the wreckage,

the map of hurt and loss.

My mind stutters:

How? What? Why?

Now what?

With silt and mud

caked on my face and hands,

I try to process.

Process!

How do I even begin to process?

Emotions flood my being.

A surge, just like the water—

ankles, knees, thighs, waist.

How?

I look out at the horizon:

death and destruction

as far as my eyes can see.

Yet in the mouth of this chaos—

this chaos, my chaos—

I will sing praises to my God, my Father.

Because I know He said

He would never leave me.

Just a whimper of praise escapes—

a small, wimpy sound

from a throat of desperation.

Tears fill the eyes

that see, yet wish they did not.

My soul is screaming,

but my body is numb.

Questioning, yet not.

Process!

All those years of seeing

devastation in other places,

never believing I could be touched.

But here. Now.

Am I allowed to ask?

Why me? Why now? Why here?

Is no one immune to the agony?

How do I continue?

How do we continue—

as a person, a people, a community?

I feel a shift.

A sense of… yet.

I will continue.

I will rise up.

I will start to sing.

I have a voice despite the pain.

I will stand, though I have been crushed.

I WILL PROCESS!

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