Can I remember that joy riding on
The pain of birth, a thrush singing at seven
On a fence whistling at my deaf heart
In a small room? Was I asleep to the
Crowds facing the other way in this light
Now so sharp so clear? Wrapped in fellowship.

Such smallness and consciousness of the world
Breathing air, beating the pulse, as I crawled
To my shore bursting with gratitude
Wet with sweat not knowing how to love
Only a witness to the glory of
Breathing, crying, feeling sleeping, in a trembling shell.

Eyes became everything, the smiles,
Footsteps across the carpet, one foot like a spring
Padding the ground unevenly
Beauty all fresh and new and pink.
Barely born myself as we even now are born again and again
Love transformed into youth into adulthood
Transforming again, entering new harbors.

Life full of ideas like a grenade at the feet
Nellie packing her trunk and going to the circus
Watching for black snakes in the grass and the bats
All of us prisoners of love blown by life's wind
Life never to be the same

Fate and happenstance driving us onward
To a fixed point from which to see a new path
Throughout the evening darkness of a deep forest
Carrying lamps repeating a mantra, "This matters."
This is my breath and life as an article of faith
This is where I make my stand, my standard
Underneath which, I'll fight. I'll labor.
Back to back armed and dangerous
Ready to prove the other whole
Handling the bricks with which to build
And I knew nothing
And you always gave me light.
I pass on the light so that you may pass it on
Bring the comfort
Bearing the love
Burning brightly

The past circling like rooks
Black Ted in a royal coach
Of a wheelbarrow
And understanding falling like the rain
Pushing you on and on
Step by step
Uniformed in grey
Ready to do battle with the world.
And from this conch grew womanhood
Fearful and doubtful and awake
Each step closer to calm
Confidence seeping in under the door.
Joy was the passport you carried into the world
The shield.
Soldiers fighting for a cause must bleed
But wounds heal
Slowly through knowledge the heart is immunized
And love gives birth to love
In a reflection of itself
And new flowers spring into the air
To cast their pollen no one knows where
But we the followers remember because we were there
And joy greater than kings or queens
Rises up out of the earth
And we marvel at the blooms.