Poem: May 1, 2021

 For My Seniors, Spring 2021

This is my gift back to you, 

an honest struggle

to put into honest words, so much,

as if a poem could

contain the span and spark and heartbeat

of these unexpected months together.

To unearth words that, if they are the right words, 

must house the ancient weight of graven stones, 

of bones and home, a place to keep one’s soul,

to find the artful phrases, that express

just this: you have been sunlight to me, 

a surprising, but waited-for awakening.

And because no metaphor seems to say

all that I hope you will hear me say, 

I will mix my metaphors like paint, 

and shape and reshape this story like clay.

So let’s say I contained a forgotten box,

hinged and solid and locked and set down

a decade ago, there, where my dust had settled, 

until your voices filled this empty room

And your hands flipped switches,

Pulled blinds, cracked windows, 

Stirred the dust, 

woke me up and broke what had seemed so determined

and immovable.

You have handed me back 

my own open box, 

Full to falling with open fields

where narratives and photographs unfade themselves

in such organic unfolding.

And I am full with you, 

running like rivers, pouring like rain, 

breezing like breath through the atmosphere,

and tilling up this hardened

dusty soil with the bright edges

of your questions.

I don’t know how this happened, 

this world within a box within the room

within myself. 

No map could have brought you

where you are, at the center of me 

in this mad metaphor because

language is infinite and still too small

to contain the whole dense universe 

you have given me.

It seems, I have only this:

you have changed me,

and I am grateful.