Back

I just got back
From a beautiful requiem.
I’m not sure what died
But I’m back now.
And I am remembering how,
As a teenager
I would come home late,
Drunk as a skunk and,
Quiet as a moth walking up the screen
Toward the light,
I would tiptoe up the stairs and
Collapse on my childhood bed
Beyond exhausted, staring
Into the stars
Of my private cosmos.
And I felt as if I had just crawled home
An enormous distance.
2) Now that I am back
I sit up straight!
I am seated in lotus
On the moon.
My weeping eyes are
Caked and streaked with moon dust.
My eyes have just been blessed
From seeing the Earth-rise.
Blessed by how sweet She looks
And how forgiving!
And as I sit there in moon dust
I begin to think of my parents
Who gave birth to me
On the forgiving Earth.
3) We don’t have to love our lives
To get away with
Living long selfish lives.
And we don’t have to love ourselves
For the world to love us.
It sounds like I am talking about God
But it isn’t God I’m talking about,
It really is Earth . . .
About how we just have to love something
That She gave us
For Her to forgive us
For everything we have done to her.
And it is on the little strength
Of that child-like love
That she lets us
Crawl back.