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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