Drop It!

Drop It!

(“God told the serpent: ‘Because you’ve done this, you’re cursed, cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals, cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life.’” Genesis 3:13 [The Message])

What is that burden you carry?
What is the callous shoulder to shoulder?
What is the “I” that takes every word the world makes
as an arrow sent to tackle your balance?
What is the line drawn across your forehead more
permanent than a tattoo?

What is your lineage; the snake, the sin?
Your heritage; weight and chagrin?
What is your birthplace, the cabinetry predating
the old stands back of your home?

Why do you pace like curse when curse is dead as
dirt; a hill-full of criminals built for One raised above
raucous, surrounding the sound of menace that
lost its legs over wages of stealth and trickery.

You do not live in the old home,
the lines were erased, your burden is misplaced upon your shoulders.
You were born instead, you were chosen ahead

Of the frowns you drop upon the floor
and pick up to wear again
proof in the packaging you are oh so devoted
(more than all the smile light and heart phrases bumped from
wall to wall)

What is the secret you forgot?
What is the memory, warms and grin?
What is the final blow, the ebb (silent grief)
the flow (holy breath)
that remembers the death blow to every serpent
that tried to raise its head above the Human Prince’s heel?

Why pay taxes on the old snake’s wages,
You’ve got miles ahead (age to ages)
and do not need to show so pious
that you carry a knapsack of stone.

Drop it where you stand,
cry and let the sand swallow the grief
until the life you’ve tried to tame comes screaming out
in full relief…the joy that knows a snake is just a snake
and no one asked you to wrestle the legless creep.