Down

Falling drops me down another notch, leaves me flat out with questions of how and why. Then I ask to be pulled up from the mud by any low hand outstretched.

Upright, rolled over and red-faced, still stunned by sharp wet words, what remains but to acknowledge that this moment is among the final ones.

Go on. Get on your feet. Continue.

If a hundred and then a thousand agree, concur on the crimes, call out slurs, shun in unison, the vigil of the ignored truths can still exist outside this circle.

Upward then. Rise up.

Let go of the clinging. A hard heart gains only through its softening. An expanse between what came before and what might be.

That's the way I must now go.

Rain Returning

Up-raised, in the wind, a fist. On comes rain slapping and seeping between knuckles. Fist, strong, defiant, head up as wind leans in.

And, in wind, now a palm, opened, accepting. Rain pocking on pink skin, flaying fingers. The palm becomes a face, red from the unrelenting.

Now a second hand rises like the first, twists and bobs, braces against the cold and wet, summoning an echo of old stories, of your life, of mine, of vanishing and the come back.

Let these slights slap me like god’s tears, the flood of every possible being crying out, everyone knowing we have now begun what can’t be stopped.

Captured, every single detail, and spilled in the mud, seeping into yet another storm. We are standing with both hands raised. We may sink below. We will be back.

We have always proven stronger the second time through.