Love The 3-Inch-Deep Swamp

May 20, 2010

Love the 3-inch-deep swamp,
have mercy on those who drift
with sails rolled up
and bless the quicksand pits
and tidal pools.

Smell the applause,
the menu it’s gathering from,
the restaurant that’s open 24/7,
the grin,
the chuckle,
who bring boredom
with another’s impediment
into entangled miles of flaming,
lighting-the-way yarns…

Smile at the holy-slow tortoise who knows
these sorts of heart-forest-fires all too well,
that it can ease across such haloed infernos
while eating god-love-strawberries inside its
temple-shell.

Wonder into the Dying’s eyes,
be that Crystal Clipper Ship making
a path through the murkiness of cataracts,
dementia and clearing throats
who yearn for God’s tonalities.

Bless the raging businessman
that Business is that way,
because if the bruises tasted sweet
the heart might just roll over
and go to sleep
on the other side of the bed too.

Bless the umbrella-breaking-currents
that we cannot see
and the lifelines
who pull the hook out of the tide
before we open our mouths
to say something important about God
to the impaled worm
whose not necessarily struggling…

Death rarely speaks of its new dance steps
to those still laying the floor for its entry.

Stand in awe of those who cannot see
your faults for what they’re worth
to the mirror,
who in god-reality,
has no glass,
no silver
and no private wall,
evict you mind and hire your heart.

Bless the quietness that the heart sends out
when thick-deep forests are brought into view,
when tsunami waves unwrap the overstuffed
envelope and spill valentine candies all over.

Touch the color green,
though not the leaf,
touch the cotton,
though not the slave
perfectly at peace
with his own predicament,
his own fraction of a sum
of god-deeds done so far,
so very far into this world’s wet eyes dripping
waterfalls of swans diving
and their eggs glowing in the darkness,
bringing dreams of feathered beds
to those unlit rooms crowded with hammocks
pulling their four walls into tighter storytelling.

Love the hand
that has lost all its fingers,
there are no questions anymore,
yes, indeed,
everything we touch,
everything we throw,
that we gather up,
and that we do
with these ten dancers
ends up in God’s begging bowl.