Kailyne Waters: September 2020

Pilgrimage

Thoughts on events in the year 2020.

We are, after all, wanderers
              lost, looking for a way
to see ourselves as part of it all.

The hill climbs on its own, we follow
              thinking that our feet on dirt
and clay will move us closer, closer still.

Are we called to something
              else beyond a travel log with dates and
times stamped with scars and motors from frames
of cars that leave?

Yes, we should know that by now. We should
              call it what it is. Truth. We are called
to speak our minds and hearts. In the sunlight
under the shade of a tall tree.

But we hesitate, our house is lined with trimmed
              shrubs and painted doors.
Our jobs move us back and forth. We can hear
              the cry.   We recognize it from
the smudge behind our bathroom mirror.

We are called to stand, walk for others. Walk in place
              of those who are hidden in the shadows of less than.
Light, bearing us down to bone.  We know the breath
              of life.
We understand the cost of silence.  We are being told
              to step out into the night, with a fraction
of a beam, smaller than a thumb nail.

It isn’t right. We are not being transformed. We are being
              corralled. Those with less means will
go first. The rest will follow, eventually.

Unless…
Unless we climb,
removing the barrier that hides our faces and
              demands that we fight on
this bitter, soggy, battlefield of darkness.
Igniting a force of good that will reign love down on terror,
tying a bow through the heart of tyranny.

And we don’t (never) unlatch ourselves from God.

Mortal

I have seen the pages turn and torn out
The binding paste used to seal and conceal the wounds of
mortal reason.

Humanity is not
eternal, but our collective impression is.
It settles on shelves where fingertips have lapsed behind
Setting suns.

We were here.
We are never fully gone from a plane that asks
us to walk upright, yet count blessings on digits formed
in flight.

We will last beyond the specks of germs that ferment our tired
ideas of boundaries, or limitless space.
We are not divine, but divinely led to ether.
An anthology of dreams; a course on mutations.
A voice in the light, an echo in the dark.
We are formed, deformed, we die.
We rise by ears that hear creative whispers.
Our eyes seeing all there has been.
Never to be unseen. 
Forever held.

Color Wheel

Prayers cover the heart more deeply
than the snow that rests on leaves

Still, like leaves, they are bold, bright beneath the
weight of change.
Stretching out
to say that God’s love is infinite
Despite the cold that creeps into color.
We welcome it.

We know it is only for a season, and it means us
no harm.

Effortless

Don’t paint “wet” on the glass
It’s not supposed to dry
The streaks are stains of thought,
an idea that has been brought into a line

that has no shape
It lands on a string
drawn taut, frayed
It connects love from its absence.
It ties off the idea that
dreams are only given for free.

Dreams are built on blocks, wooden
engraved chips of color
stacking neatly over each other
Because they are life

The messy is not the block of years
It’s what’s inside the blocks,
what forms them and informs its
reflection.
Neat patterns of rules and
papered notations layered not against,
but with wood.

Looking back, pudgy limbs
smacking at the loss of love, slapping
the air around them
A breath is not enough to tell all.

My tell all is this…
All is not lost when reflected upon
There is no loss of life, in life

There is sorrow, puddles that cradle on whipped lips
that speak with words that float on air,
to hearts that hear not the wrong doings
not the nothing can be dones, not even the
sweet, sweat of a neck cradled in thick arms

But all
Channeling, filtering out sound, forming light,
Into chalked, encrusted particles of memory
that flake and dissolve into telling it all.

Telling the tales
Limb by limb
Layered, leaves
Shooting like rocket blasts
Fed by sparks of imagination
Solid, grim, images revealing what lacked

Telling it all.
Telling the tales
Grounded on clouds, opening to roots

I am tall. I am full.
I am free.

When asked to say more about this poem, Kailyne writes, “It takes a great deal of effort to peel back the layers of what was broken early in life.  But, once the process begins, and perhaps after some time has passed, reflection offers a sense of lightness. The heaviness of sorrow begins to soften as we are gently led along a path towards healing. This poem is my attempt at capturing the feeling of being painfully but gratefully transformed.”

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Artist’s Bio:

Kailyne is a media maker by trade, including director/writer of two award-winning short films.  The first, an art-house love story that addresses childhood abuse and the impact on intimacy. The second, an animated tale of a shopping cart that goes rogue and sets out on an adventure to change his fate and ends up changing the world around him. 

When she’s not working with a cool team to build films, she has spent time writing/creating with non-profit organizations, including a film-making contest for teens, a media literacy television and radio program for at-risk children, community-based leadership for film festivals,  and grant-writing management for homeless advocacy and fair housing organizations. Kailyne’s passion for advocacy led to the creation of a non-profit arts organization for survivors of childhood abuse that focused on sharing in a safe environment. She has had the fortunate experience of writing, co-writing and presenting a variety of workshops at national survivor conferences, where she found good vibes from a rich source of advocates, doing fierce work. 

She is currently adapting her latest short film into a children’s picture book, and while she believes in magic and miracles, she doesn’t think either happens when or how she wants them to.   Kailyne believes that creation is the only original concept and everything else is a re-write. She hopes that her drafts make a difference.