All Tattered and Perfection

All Tattered and Perfection

(“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans 14:17)

Where lives intersect; eat and play and love,
we can dance the steps of the joyful,
we can hear the melody redeemed,
we can note the steps, follow the quarter-tones,
and wonder at rounds geometrically opposed to
the strict sounds that stayed within the walls of
our protected subdivisions.

But we must not journalize the stranger; bell and chant and candle.

Here in the day we are reduced to children again who
play by the rules until the rules hinder the play. Why can’t
the newest one have four strikes, not three? Why shouldn’t the
corner boy paint portraits in pink and green?

Once we have discovered our New World we die if we think
the discovering is done.
Each coast is clearly concocted of sand dropped in new
frameworks against the horizon.
Each cavern is deep or dry, shallow or dripping with stalagmites
dialed by time slower than the kitchen wall ticking.

Dry eyes, warm clouds, sand crabs, foreign sounds,
hands raised, knees bowed, hymns sung, voices loud.

A hush at supper, a shout at soccer; vespers and incense,
chocolate and cadences; each soul is its own invocation,
and benediction can begin

The moment we embrace the introspection that longs for
the dances we’ve never learned or seen or heard.

The Dancer is not of this world or your world,
The Dancer spreads the music through every crack in time.
The Dancer indwells each space between movements
and encircles the down-beats tapped or clapped or missed
in our tripping attempts to follow.

The Dancer is invitation; all tattered and perfection,
torn and covered with the crash of waterfalls and the
force of hurricanes. The Dancer is whisper; the epicenter
of creation’s silence fully alive.