Behold Our Random Carpet
Beneath my toes, cracked and bending now
In ways unimaginable when first you beheld them
You who were first and who did behold them
Countless tiny strands cut and disconnected
A tapestry together of all impressed upon them
Arbitrary this inscription of so many jumbled footsteps
Then coalescing for a moment as I think of you, and us
Into a map of love, or life, opaque and total
This gnarly pageant of meaning to which you invited
Blessing me and cursing me too, to behold
As you do, to love, as you do, to have faith, as you do.
Another impression made beautiful and crooked
Vainly inscribed as if permanent this all might be
Or futile as my fear, I also have learned to suggest
That your Gods might not all resemble mine
That the pathways and crevasses the lie beneath you
Are yours alone, as mine may be, as are ours all
Then in that divine moment, similarities do emerge
Between the character grotesque and sublime
That I beheld written into your feet, so many years ago
When I had years enough upon mine to see them
And now to behold them, as I do, to love them, as I do.
Older they and we grow, and further away perhaps
These memories, and clarities and footsteps before
But never apart, only more inscrutably together
As I watch you and feel that I am watched
As I love your Gods and learn to love my own
As I curse you while cursing really my toes
As I bless you while blessing really my souls
Does the dance of our space so tiny unfold
So vast and deep and hurried and slowed
For what done unto others is done unto us
And all that is done may be all we are owed.
Hear this then my mother, who gave me no choice
But to love you more deeply than I do my own voice
It is after you leave, I imagine with fear
That you might not have believed that I held you so dear
I may yet depart from some worlds you sewed
But let my adventures by no means explode
All that you gave and will give to me still
All that I got and take forward until
In that moment your pageant becomes only past
I hope through those windows above you behold
That I cherish completely all footprints we passed.
Once I feared after death of your watching me still
Of your living inside me and hearing my thoughts
Of the shame and despair you could then endure
Of the worry and anguish it might then inspire
But painstakingly, finally does the obvious out
In me already you dwell, my thoughts are yours too
Forever intertwined, your Gods and mine
For by walking not watching do our toes slowly bend
And far have we walked, together, toward our own ends
These footprints we leave judge not one at a time
But all at once, when a mere bit of carpet reveals
the ugly, the random, the perfect sublime.
Here will lie Zachariah
For the first time and perhaps the only time
His bodily momentum eventually slowed
The undulations and oscillations some day reverted to the horizon
Flat, and level; still, and peaceful
The opposite of the terrain he craved
Of the state he sought while upright
Teaching himself time and time again to love
Whilst raging on, in every direction
Wandering and wondering and wishing always
For that perfect victory to end all victories
The triumph over all, even his mortal self.
For what is love he too slowly learned
But time and toil, talk and tribulation
It’s pondering unlocking his soul
If only for a few minutes or hours
Before the next eruption
If words to some are a boundary
Deeds the grains to color it in
To Zachariah they are portals
Passages from one wisdom to another
From one experiment to the next
His words are quickly history echoing behind
His deeds haunt him, burning in his wake
Driving him onward lest he be consumed.
Warmed are we who love his trail of fire
Singed as we struggle to keep up
Those that accept his Sagittarian bargain
May grow tall through the years
Like great trees in an ancient forest
Scarred from fiery seasons, but nourished too
From the font of energy and wildness
The many adventures and varied terrain
The spontaneous twists and turns
As he pulls us through this life
Surfing on a still pond beside a pasture
Transforming a branch with a bit of rope
Climbing to the top of every tree, tower and hill.
For Zachariah is movement and flow
Clarifying and carving the stones around him
If a purpose in life is to master one’s self
His purpose is certainly great
Through so many portals now
He has come to build as well as he burns
Uncovering bedrock that does not ignite
Though tamed he may never fully be
And caged he may partly ever feel
In philosophy he finds some solace
One day his ultimate victory awaits
To look back and see not flames behind or others beneath
But the great forest he has nurtured,
In which he might finally come to rest.