Butterflies still frolic
in the meadow beyond the playground;
their parties are smaller in number these days,
but they’re flying, all the same.
I follow their flight, stepping into
their playground, where the grasses
sway with that pulsing call
of wilds beyond straight lines.
Breath by breath,
something shifts,
in the hollows
of my perception
as the pepper trees and lizard trails
pour aloe on old wounds, and I find
the body’s knowing way
of laying on the earth —
in her lap, through her ground,
with her gravity... As if
she could truly hold us.
As if she could welcome in
all of us, kindly...
Could take us in —
all our failings, transgressions;
could take us in --
all our greatness, and size;
without straining her back,
or heart.
She holds us
in all our uncertainty,
she holds us through all
the trembling cries
of the blood, and the bones, and
the tender cheeks;
through the night and the wide, wild day.
—
‘Thank you’, ‘I love you’,
say the bones and the blood
and the deepest breath
as I find myself
in prayer
with her skin
in the sunday sun
tucked away
from all steeples
in a park past the edge
of the city.