another poem

It would be one thing

Dog puke clogs the sink,

stinking to high heaven.

Dishes lean, crusty remembrances of meals past.

A child whines for breakfast,

another croaks that his throat hurts

red and raw and—

the plans crash and spin.

The tomorrow we will do this and that

twists without warning into

I will give you tylenol and smooth your fevered brow,

I will plug my nose and put my bare hand in the sink

to pull out vomit and dog hair.

I will vacuum again, do dishes again, pay bills again.

I will drag the weight of children, dogs, husband, home and hearth.

Most days I do it finding transcendence in the mundane,

ever the one who yearns after beauty,

trained and pruned to turn my face with gratitude

toward the sun that shines

on tulip and car wreck alike.

I didn't know it then but I look back and wonder

at those moments when somehow,

through a grace and presence not my own but flowing through,

I have turned the raw wretched mess of life into beauty and order,

a throb of music beating under rents and snags.

It would be one thing if today were the first day I laid down my pen,

picked up your needs and tears, and turned your inchoate rage

into clear words, hugging a brother, a lesson on humanness and maybe a bit of the God within you.

It would be one thing if today were the first day

I pushed my own righteous indignation down, down

out of sight and out of earshot,

emptying myself to receive once again your wish and desire,

tuning myself to your invisible subterranean plea and

giving you my body, my mind, my love as your own tight warm container,

the empty singing bowl that holds the weight of your world.

Yes, it would be one thing if this were the first time

I put myself last dead last, instead of speaking out into the world

my one small wild voice

which now festers, poisoning my own well,

a concrete dam blocking the mighty Colorado,

pooling it into a glassy alien blue lake

where houseboats bob and radios blare

and tourists yell thoughtless obscenities

over drowned shorelines ridged with juniper and cactus,

over rapids surging against broken boulders,

over a river that will never run through it again.


{CBK
4.18.2014}