Bloodletting
Griefletting
Voices letting
Themselves carry and rise
Join in murmuration
Swell with life
Power ache and moan
Circle the room
We sit in silence
Letting
Blood drip
An offering to strangers
No one asks why
They have need
Who they love or pray to
How they eat or who with
If they’ve ever cheated been untrue
Taken more than they’ve given
Or given more than they’ve received
Who they’ve been or plan to be
We ask nothing at all
We sit circled
In silence
Dripping
Life giving
Life receiving
Bloodletting
Griefletting
Circles of candle lit faces
Dripping and listening to
Voices of every day saints
And sinners
Attuned and holding
Each other suspended in air
Cascades of sounds
From depths of guts and bones
Backs of throats and innermost
Caverns of hearts and lungs
Grief is let like blood
Giving new life
To deadness
Cleansing and dislodging the stuck things
That threaten our lives
Salt
Oxygen
Hydrogen
Blood
Tears
Breath
Exhale
A note so clear and pure
Held out like a gift
An offering with no question of
Whose ears it may touch
If they are deserving
Like the tree who sends medicine
Through a web of interconnected subterranean pathways
To forest strangers in distress
Because even strangers can be family
Sound waves travel ear canals
Speaking a primordial language of soul and dirt
Blood and tears and breath
Griefletting
Bloodletting
Life letting
Life out
To let life in
Jaclyn Edds Konczal | December 2023