The Healing Time

The Healing Time
                                                Finally on my way to yes
                                                I bump into
                                                all the places
                                                where I said no
                                                to my life
                                                all the untended wounds
                                                the red and purple scars
                                                those hieroglyphs of pain
                                                carved into my skin, my bones,
                                                those coded messages
                                                that send me down
                                                the wrong street
                                                again and again
                                                where I find them
                                                the old wounds
                                                the old misdirections
                                                and I lift them
                                                one by one
                                                close to my heart
                                                and I say    holy
                                                          holy.
                                                               © Pesha Joyce Gertler

Placed first in a national contest in New York Schools, 2001; set to music by composer, Elizabeth Alexander in Ithaca, and performed by numerous choral groups in New York, New England states and Oregon; published in Cross Currents; "Claiming the Spirit Within,:" (Beacon Press Anthology); Pontoon Anthology; appears in "Healing and Empowering the Feminine," by Sylvia Senensky, Jungian analyst, Canada; included in many healing and grieving groups.

To learn more about Pesha Joyce Gertler, click on this link.