A Prayer for Letting Go

I release you, so 
that you may release me.
The place that I take in your heart, 
the way you speak to yourself in my voice, 
and conjure my face, 
let it be now only 
the part of me 
that you knew to be good, 
that may serve to guide you 
towards your truth.

By this; 
I make the way clear again 
between us, 
and allow the bonds and chains that 
we felt as wounds, 
to be loosened, 
so that we may connect again 
with that in the world 
which we loved in our hearts 
about each other.

By this, 
I make the way clear again 
for me, 
to connect again 
with that about Life 
which I loved in my heart
about myself.

I release you, so 
that you may release me. 
That we may put down 
the weight that we carried 
from our time together 
and our parting; 
and have washed clean at last, 
the lingering taste 
of the way we parted, 
and acknowledgement 
of the scars that we held, 
each in our own manner and measure 
of reckoning 
more by the lessons they describe 
than the manner or measure
of wounding.

I release you, so 
that you may release me. 
That we may be left to carry only 
that part of our song, 
which knew only 
how to love 
and be loved, 
something that may yet grow 
into a feint hymn of fondness and appreciation 
that is overheard being sung, unbidden 
in the garden our hearts by a bird 
whose name we never learn.

Here at the end of this cycle
there is nothing left to forgive.
I let it go, 
so that I may belong, fully, to the next cycle,
and leave all that is small in me, behind me
and take all my inheritance with me.

I honour the one
that walked the road, that bore the chains, 
that gave and received the wounds,
I carry your essence with me, 
in the form of Understanding.

I am free. 
I wish you to be free also, 
and by that I am made free.

I am whole.
I wish you to be whole also,
and by that I am made whole.

Rocco Jarman
from the Collection, The Way