Miriam E. Miles, poet, contemplative writer and author of Phoenix: An abstract poetic autobiography.

I stumbled across this unedited audio file and have little memory of having written it and no idea where the penned version is. The timestamp is from December 2019, and I know that I was in a state of internal frustration and impatience having been made redundant from a job I thought I was meant to be in for years to come and not knowing what steps I should take next. I had a growing sense at the time that something was being reshaped in me and had murmurings in my heart to pull together a poetry collection. Why this piece did not make the cut, I do not know but as I listened to it today, I heard the cracking of the chrysalis and the beating of fragile wings transformed into a battle-hardened phoenix rising from the ashes.

From this point, I put my collection, Phoenix, together and when COVID hit my world turned upside down. The following two years have been a true breaking free from my past and stepping into a new understanding of myself and the world around me.