Did You See the Way I Fell?

Did You See the Way I Fell?

(“Why do you notice the small piece of dust that is in your friend’s eye, but you don’t see the big piece of wood that is in your own eye?” Luke 6:41)

The pieces you see now I usually hid
before
the big bang that
started photons careening across my history.
Not that I’ll show it all,
or to everyone,
but I must admit I enjoy living with far
fewer fences.

Did you see the way I fell that day?
Did you see how I stumbled for more than a year?
Did you see the wobble in my orbit,
the onion peels in my opinion?
Did you suppose the dream you had
that cast me as a night-terror
was given you by a god who loves to
frighten shaking souls?
Did you see the way I cried?

I know you thought
you found trash in my back yard
months after I had moved away.
It should mean something to you that
I left it behind and
did not take it with me.

I admit my perceptions are colored by
an opaque woodenness. I confess I’ve thought
I might be death unlivable. But that was only based
upon
the words I heard from towering trees
whose roots were dry where they poked through
the hillsides. My roots were nearly lifeless too.

I’ve met vagabonds, I’ve met fancy dancers,
I’ve met wise men who eschewed answers,
I’ve met storage sheds locked up so tight
that they were all but empty inside.
I’ve met children of the forest, I’ve met mothers of the desert,
I’ve met drooping eyes that shined like starlight
and knew something they would not share.

I learned to welcome from those who welcomed me.
I learned to throw the garbage out
that I thought had stuck to me.

There are those whose eyes have wept for
their own pain,
and invite you like good medicine
to share the campfire where old stories
are only stories

After all.