Shhh.
Hold your tongue, they say,
and we listen as far as our cells
report it’s good;
gong go the seasons, one, two,
three and four—gone when the
dance ends.
Come, friends. Let’s see if there
is a surprise with me at the
beginning,
you’re free to disagree with
anything, the country is the
world, the
world a word and words, like
Borges said, are fictions, Lao
Tzu warning
against the false Tao, but then
he wrote eighty-one poems
anyway! Come,
read to me some poem, some
Longfellow-like lullaby to truth
in rhyme, meter
or free to decorate a page or
brains, the imaginary road to
realms near,
far, wondering what we are, until
we unite in song. This is not
surprising, so…
We trek on, and on, and on until
there is a fact in the grass, the
sweetest dream
known by labor, Robert Frost failing
as farmer as his pen and types did
succeed.
Truth is a beautiful weed.
There—we may have surprised in
that one! Up goes the crowd,
as the Olympian
crosses the threshold where pain
becomes a second wind; he or she
reaching
to a higher place as they round
the final corner! Look at him go,
women
on the rise, coming to the top,
restrictions fall being good to
us all;
those in control will not be someday,
so they hold and hold and hold
‘long as they can.
Truth dawns after the rain in colors,
the drench like a fire in reverse
getting us wet
and cleared of doubt.
We cannot deny the facts, now,
Donald, Ricky, Bobby and Mike;
if you do,
tell her you like. God or Higher
Power, or Native Great Spirit,
this morning shower—
be with us, fill us with the dream
that is a co-opted walk, a lonely
trail joined by shadows until
real.
There’s another surprise, the wind
bringing change which is the hope
over pain.
We let all seasons pass until at
one with the difference, we egg on
diversity
in the sunshine that was the sad
storm of previous clouds, blocks
and ignorance.
We cannot know until we know,
which is why an appeal to spirit
works.
If reading and unsure, stop now.
Shhh. Pray.
There you are.
Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet 