PJ Temple - elements of collective morning
The Friday Feature
elements of collective morning
the alarm just rang again, the one that demands awakening, a chime, airy, serious
how to stretch out these fifteen minutes
into an hour or days fold them into years
can sorrow hide from blinding light streaming into a cavernous room
the sun demands awakening
even as ice breaks onto children because mother, mist, memory are one
while on the dark side of the sun, bombs become wildfires, alight smog over hearts
even as fires rage inside children because mother, mist, memory are one
waters become a battlefield
even as waves break within children because mother, mist, memory are one
how does one wake when no one can sleep
it is mourning
From the Press:
Temple pulls you into this momentary shared waking—one that is reluctant and heavy with awareness. This poem isn't private grief voiced aloud, but an attunement to a wider human condition.
In this, there is recognition in the uneasy crossing from rest into consciousness, where the mind is forced to register the world again. It evokes the feeling of waking up already tired, already grieving, already aware that the day is going to ask more than one has to give.
The imagery is not abstractions, but witnesses and recipients of the world's fractures. The elements of ice, fire, water invokes both natural cycles and human-made devastation that creates a sense that harm is omnipresent and inescapable.
A play on words between the title and the ending becomes the quiet axis. Morning is traditionally associated with beginnings and light, is refigured as a state of grief—one that spans personal loss and global suffering.
There is a subtle suggestion that says to be awake in this world—to truly see it—is to inhabit mourning as a shared, ongoing condition. It is forming a relationship with hurt, to hold vigil rather than seek escape. It is not an endpoint but a sustained mode of being.
About the Author:
PJ's a writer, psychologist, and TEDx speaker published in The Broken Spine, Write City Magazine, Riksha and elsewhere. She wrote a memoir (represented by SJF Literary) on how India's caste based ideas nearly disrupted PJ's interracial relationship. She believes sharing stories is how humanity remains united.
PJ has published a 12-month journal to help guide your healing journal and a collection of essays detailing the journey of finding balance between roots growing in tradition and culture, and those expanding outwards into new territory.
Connect with PJ on her website at www.pjtemple.com, TikTok, and Instagram.
