raiding my heart

Last night I read through an old copy of Fragile World, to remind myself of its purpose and vision (for more details, click here). I reached my goal of £500 at the end of last year, and wanted to start my next project, Out of Darkness (its working title), this year. Out of Darkness is proving in many ways to be more challenging, not least because I am starting it completely from scratch. I did write poems specifically for Fragile World, but many were compiled out of those I had written before.

I wanted Out of Darkness to be not an anthology but a collection of 'poems and prayers for a broken world' - a resource for personal intercession, if you like. I hope to use it to raise money for the abused women of the Congo, perhaps through Tearfund, although I will wait until it has taken more shape to look into this further.

Waiting for inspiration isn't going to work; I have slowly begun to put pen to paper and raid my heart, but it isn't easy. I need to perpetually remind myself of those words that so propelled me in the first place - there is always something you can do.

The following is one of those I wrote especially for Fragile World, coming out of the original grief I experienced on the 'breaking of the walls' of my heart. Dear God, don't let me forget it.

Torn

her tears –
flames in the heart
of God, burning –
she,
wonderfully made
but treated as
disposable,
to be used, and then
used up.
ripped apart,
torn inside and out
splintered like a
shell, under
an iron foot.
violated,
her soul turns to ash.
no more heart music –
they have broken her strings.

(C) Lucy Mills 2008, Fragile World