Joy

I press the pattern to my nose,
threadbare and walked over
by generations of my people,
their footprints still [[here]]
beneath the [[blue]] and red and [[white]],
and those people that passed it to them:
all this [[soul]]
in the warp and woof of what
I have come to declare
my submission on,
my poverty and bewilderment.

A colourful carpet crucible -
half starshine, half clay -
with hints of a kingdom come
in the crinkled rim, crying [[heart]],
hands empty before the decree,
certain and celebrating another [[death]]
practiced well.

Old words like the desert,
still never walked over
in this exact configuration
poured into my [[empty]] core,
here,
washed clean by one grain
swirling an endless ocean,
a speck of utter delight
as you said last [[night]]
when we sat cross-legged
on a shore of beating [[water]]
and being.

We have known such joy,
have walked barefoot
in the boundless,
sat and played with the [[secret]]
of it all by that gothic cathedral
only to have a small girl
come by and, giggling to her[[self]],
go far deeper than we dared,
laughing at the look of surprise
on our faces, as if being blown apart
were not a benediction
but a birthright.

And again, in the distance,
like an old drum beat carrying
its message, its simple meaning
across valleys and rising [[time]],
my brother's [[voice]], gentle and full:

"Once you understand, just dance
and [[be]] thankful."

Traces

• I die