Tuesday, June 7, 2011

I am a student of movements of the heart



I am a student of movements of the heart
when the clouds like milk in water billow and spill
down the low places of the mountains
and the late sun light is too smooth to believe,
I am a student of movements of the heart.

when I am bestowed a life of co-toil in worthy soil
with kin closer than blood by choice and not by choice,
and wake every day springing from my floor
ready to do what I was built to do,
as a pelican must feel when it sees its wings work on the lift of wind by the crest of waves at the shore, I am a student,

when a best friend is committed to raise too much money
for too high a mountain and kids too burdened with chains they did not fasten,
and a best friend shares a cigarette with me to confess his sins and
make me feel less alone,
I am a student of movements of the heart,

for they are neither joy nor sorrow,
but one part longing, one part hunger, another thirst,
and a space in my chest and fingers and knees,
that makes me wish to be barefoot,
to burst into mist and mingle there
where I have no body but all of it at once.

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