Imprints & Pathways
(Poems about awakening within)
By Sophie Rouméas

IV Boléro And The Artist
(A meditation inspired by Maurice Ravel's Boléro)
By Sophie Roumeas

Even before your first breath,
something was already beating.
A patient rhythm,
beneath the noise of the world,
waiting for your steps.

As you were listening,
attentive to faces,
to voices that opened or closed,
you learned where to place your words,
where to hold back your tears,
how to remain
so as not to lose your place.

Little by little you knew
which gestures reassured,
which parts of you to silence.
You smoothed your edges,
raised discreet walls,
learned to smile before you felt.
And you were called peaceful,
as you were becoming careful.

Other faces came,
other places, other promises—
yet the same note returned.
The same impulses,
the same silences,
the same wounds in familiar places.

One day
you heard, behind the scenes,
an older echo.
It wasn’t only others
who touched your pain—
they knew the way to it.
As if the door already existed,
and their hands
only turned its key.

Then you began to look,
no longer only at what happened,
but at what in you responded.
Your angers, your withdrawals,
your impulses, your refusals—
no longer faults,
but signs.

The music did not stop.
It was waiting
to be heard.

As long as you remained dormant within it,
destiny carried you.
When you listened,
you began to play.

Then you no longer tried
to silence the music.
You offered your ear,
then your hand,
then your own voice.
What kept returning
was an invitation.

You were given an instrument—
sometimes fragile, sometimes strong—
made of breath, gestures, and words.
Your voice,
your silences,
your open or closed hands.
And the music changed
when you chose to play.

Joy entered,
sorrow too.
You stopped closing your door.
Each visitor
brought a new note,
even those who unsettled the house.

You were not here to repair life,
but to take part in it
in your own singular way.

And sometimes, for no reason,
something opened within you—
sudden laughter,
the beauty of an ordinary sky,
the simple taste of shared fruit.
You understood then
that life was not only learning,
but receiving.

Some play with notes,
others with colors,
others with soil or the fire of a kitchen.
One hand teaches,
another heals,
another plants a seed.

Your work was never your profession,
but the way you inhabited your gestures.
So you cultivated your garden,
in order to give.

Little by little you understood
that harmony was not silence.
It was not yielding
so everything remained calm,
nor speaking
in order to be right.
It was remaining present
when your heart hesitated,
and no longer abandoning yourself.

Sometimes you stayed,
no longer from fear,
but from fidelity to what was true.
Sometimes you left,
no longer from rejection,
but to keep life within you.

Then others changed place,
because you no longer expected
them to play your music.
Each carried their own,
and the whole became possible.

Little by little you learned
not to leave your heart
to remain true within the world.

You recognized the same presence
in a gaze,
in a tree,
in the sea or in stone—
as if one breath
moved through all things.

You sought peace
and discovered something else:
life was neither calm nor chaos.
Within you, a place arranged itself—
steady enough to welcome
the unexpected.

For chaos was not the enemy:
it brought the color.
Order gave the form.

Then you saw:
life was not testing you.
It was making room for you.

You had nothing to become
in order to belong.
You already belonged—
to the passing day,
to those you met,
to the breath moving through you.

What had been lived through
no longer asked for repair.
Even the detours
had drawn your path.

What remained
was simply the joy of being here—
to breathe,
to love without understanding everything,
and to recognize life
as it recognized you.

I come from Creation,
I create in my own singular way,
and I return to Creation.