The Great Drought (or Goodness Again) [Greetings to Little Dragon]

today i feel as if i were tall

and everyone i passed saw

into my eyes looking for hope

but yet the hope, the clay around

my roots, is wet and collapse.

here i pass by you

and lean forward,

like a tall pine in high winds,

exhausted into resigning

my own volition to withstand.

today i am tall and thin

and the hope which stretched

out like my needles has freed me

and made me aware

that i must fill my rings of age

with breath of desire to be myself,

tall and thin,

i am everything of and but myself,

i'll be no longer timid to fill me with wholesome self-reflection,

so when the clay is wet

and the wind is strong

i'll smile as my hair waves

to passing possibilities,

happy to be here now,

quiet on the hillside,

tilting toward the dirt,

watching all the humans

running the mountain down,

diving into the glacial lake

or digging their toes into the sand

bracing themselves for the pain

of blocking their excitement

for life until they are tall and thin

and nothing is left for them

but the unfamiliar eyes of the next generation—that final Epiphany too late.

So here i am, once being them,

i know the fear they don't face,

for they would rather turn away,

for they are not yet aware

of their own breath

and of the shake of their footfall,

and the power of their young eyes.

i wish i could tell them

from up here in my slanted stance

that there is no future but this present moment,

and though i was once them and spent years in disillusion thinking it reality,

not aware that the wound is the blessing,

after years of hibernating yin,

to be what one may be,

they need receive it by

linking hands with their running peers,

so that they may be aware of their own prison

so they my break out

and run the mountain down,

diving off the cliff and into deep water

to cleanse themselves and their generation

of the rust upon their courage

to be again alive and effective,

as their grandmothers and fathers were,

they who became their breath

once they stripped and dove

into the blue green depths,

gasping for air as they rose

the fullness of their bodies

choosing to express consciously

love even to those who sit and devise and kill.

i envision them now, running beside an image of me once young

flying down the mountain,

packing down the wet clay with our bare feet

breathing and giving us all life

hardening the clay that upholds,

rendering life from and for their neighbor. Goodness again.

And if i were so lucky to speak with You

i would tell you;

accept not apples from they who feed Your siblings poison and illogic

from a box on a pedestal.

i would tell You to

take it down!—

rip it off!—

spit it out!—

be no longer lying

on your back or to yourself!

for nobody will give you breath but they who control your lungs,

and nobody may make you speak or stay silent but they who govern Your mouth—

let that be You!

Run the Mountain down!

pack the clay round my roots and feed me life!

for there is more worth in that

than in all the gold in the hills.

I am tired now

and about to fall—

can you hear me breaking?

it is the last lesson i will give—

does my voice echo into the mirror of your mind's eye?

turn toward it now

for you will see

your children are already here and you are mine.