Chasing the Mystery

What I didn’t know yet swallowed me,

and I sat in the belly of that bliss,

a toad hibernating under an old clay pot.

That winter was a LazyBoy recliner of wait and see.

It would launch me like a jewelweed seed –

explosion of what I could be now.

What I forgot was that life feeds on life,

bloody carcass to forest to cicada song, we all take a turn.

What I believed was that mercy is a red blanket,

permeable and frayed along the edges, sometimes

spread wide as the Platte, others torn deep as the Hudson.

What I couldn’t figure out soared over the prairie of spent days

like a hummingbird, a hawk, a heron.

It followed the skittering shadows of every holy shit surprise,

then nested under long, surrendered streaks of dusk.

What I buried was a kernel of green in my heart,

trusting it would rise and shine for those who truly saw me,

emerald reflection of a galvanized lineage.

What I uncovered was that time is its own language,

climbing and falling in guttural tones,

to spin our stories and keep eternity fresh.

Then I remembered, under a nebulous dome of buzz and hum,

to make ready to be swallowed once more;

for in chasing the mysteries of my wild true self,

be it vixen or June bug, I luck into the best ways home.

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What the Muses Leave Behind

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