Tracing Abandonment – Reflections on Poetry In Practice

With this intention, I asked a dear friend whom I greatly admire, Eileen Kwesiga, to reflect on the impact my writing has had on her (#PoetryInPractice). Eileen is a leader in higher education, a researcher in sustainability and social equity, and a global entrepreneur, among her many remarkable talents.

When I first approached Eileen with this request, I sensed a slight hesitancy in her voice. She shared that poetry had never really drawn her in, yet she was open to giving my work a try. Over the following weeks, she sent me small notes, acknowledging that the words were taking time to contemplate, but also that something within her was beginning to stir.

Then, to my deep delight, she wrote me a message that was both thoughtful and vulnerable, one that beautifully captures the courage required to engage in deep inner contemplation, and the profound impact that this work can have. Her words reflect how poetry can serve as a powerful portal for reflection and transformation.

“Every time I pick up Illusions of This World, I wonder why I waited so long to return to it. And every time I put it down, I feel like something in me has been stripped raw—painful, exposed, but somehow lighter.

Reading it feels like shedding a layer of skin you didn’t know you were still carrying.

I didn’t expect that. I’m not someone who gravitates toward poetry. Most of the time, it feels distant—too tied to the author’s inner world to fully reach mine. I went into this unsure whether it would actually move me or just feel like more of the same spiritual language I’ve already encountered.

But this was different.

From the introduction alone, I could tell something deeper was being offered—something beyond fear, beyond lack, beyond the routines we convince ourselves are the purpose of life. It forced a question I hadn’t fully confronted: if we spend our lives trying to soothe pain and fulfill desire, what does it mean to live beyond that?”

Beneath these surface‑level inquiries, however, lie deeper questions that we often avoid. For various reasons – our conditioned thinking, the busyness and distraction of daily life, or painful feelings of shame – we don’t always allow ourselves to confront what stirs underneath.

The question that surfaced for Eileen, one she hadn’t fully faced before, became a powerful seed of transformation.

She continued to explore this question through several poems. As she allowed the words to slowly seep into her consciousness, insights began to arise, particularly around her relationship with her mother.

“Then the poems started to land.

Crying Out for Ma didn’t just resonate—it collapsed years of my relationship with my mother into a single moment. The confusion, the distance, the attempt to understand, the eventual acceptance—it was all there. Compressed, but complete.

And then Chasm of Sorrow. That one hit differently. It took me back to the moment she passed—the suddenness, the absence, the way grief doesn’t arrive cleanly but floods everything at once.

By the time I reached Tracing Abandonment, it stopped feeling like I was reading someone else’s work. It felt like I was reading my own life, translated into language I didn’t know I needed.

That’s what makes this book rare.”

Tracing Abandonment

Existing tormented by the perpetual fear that love will leave
Seeking insatiably unending validation that love is still here
Feeling simmering distress steadily desiccate joy from life 

Teetering on the precipice of forsaking passion and presence
Discerning a faint calling to stay with the nihilistic voice of fear
Following the molten trail of the pain to its seething epicenter

Supplicating the raw ache to reveal its story of abandonment
Sensing the violence thrust upon this innocent vulnerable heart
Witnessing the careless neglect of those entrusted to give love

Determining that love was too deceptive to be believed
Unaccepting existence of love to be real and devoted
Waiting uneasily for love to vanish revealing unworthiness

-Tejal Tarro

What she doesn’t know is that, in her message to me, she is articulating the meaning and impact I hope my writing can offer – in language I didn’t know I needed! Isn’t that the beauty in sharing heartfelt expression!

She goes on to state how the words stirred her emotions:

“It doesn’t just express emotion—it reconstructs it. It takes experiences that felt scattered and gives them form, then hands them back to you in a way that feels both confronting and healing.

If you’re willing to be unsettled—if you’re willing to be taken apart a little—this book will do that.

And then, quietly, it will begin to put you back together.”

Eileen has described my inner world and gift of expression in ways I hadn’t fully acknowledged. I feel deeply blessed to have this creative outlet for expressing emotion or, as Eileen so beautifully names it, “reconstructing it … in a way that feels both confronting and healing.”

My tangle with emotions threads itself through my days, a large and inescapable part of my existence. For much of my life, I have carried a strong sense of responsibility to serve in this world, while simultaneously holding deep shame and confusion within myself. I have pursued and achieved success in many of the ways this world defines it yet still felt empty and disconnected from my own essence.

Through my own practice of contemplation, however, I am learning to listen more closely to my soul and to trust a deeper guidance—one that is rooted in divine love.

My desire is to inspire contemplation in others—to help loosen the conditioning that keeps us tethered to suffering, and to serve as a companion in dancing with the unknowns of our unfolding lives. I want to remind us that we are not alone in either the struggle or the beauty of being human. I am profoundly grateful to Eileen for reflecting this back to me, especially as I remain at the beginning of this journey of creative expression, with little in the way of worldly validation. As I sit with her words and reread Tracing Abandonment, I recognize that I am still “waiting uneasily for love to vanish, revealing unworthiness”—only now, that love takes the form of engagement, resonance, and the slow process of building community.

It often feels daunting to invite leaders to slow down, to practice contemplation, and to engage in a deeper community of expression. I witness daily how chaotic and turbulent our world has become, and how our systems of communication tend to reward what is flashy and catchy over what is rich and meaningful. This is precisely where I am learning to soften: to relax into trust and allow the unfolding to happen without burdening myself with expectations of love taking the form of some contrived ideal of success. I have chased those expectations before, and I know their outcome: hollow and fleeting highs with a lingering sense of unworthiness.

I don’t know where this journey of creative expression is ultimately leading. So, I continue to create and share, not to seek acclaim as proof of being loved, but to offer what arises from the depths as an act of trust. A trust that meaningful impact begins when we dare to meet ourselves, and one another, with presence and love. Thank you, my dear friend Eileen, for this reminder.

– coauthored by Eileen Kwesiga