Downstream
Open me.
Take me from here to there.
Let the wind blow
my hair and the earth’s skin touch me.
Open me like broken bottles
that bear no drink
yet think themselves worthy of the trash man.
Open me to the clans from which I sprout.
Are they colors separated, cast apart
like memories of drunkenness?
Open me to Africa, Asia, America, Australia.
Open me like a package
of mystery left on your doorstep
in the sweetness of laughter.
Open me to the crudely made lens of love
that screams to be of human hands
and lips.
Open me to the glance
that comforts strangers like the tender overture
of a mourning dove.
Is the wisdom of horses mine
to harness?
Is the muscle of wolves
lawless or the healer of sheep?
Is the black opal of the eye
the missing link we all seek?
Open me to the authors of this beaten path
and let them flavor it anew.
Bring them flecks of the rumored and rotten
slum that waits downstream.
Show them the waste of their watch.
The shallow virility that exterminates.
The ignominy that exceeds examination.
Open me to the idols of the idle.
Let me stare open mouthed at the herdsmen
who turn innocence into fear.
Is the plan of the sniper to uncivilize
the nerveless patch of skin
that grows unyielding to pain?
Open me to the stains
of this land that original sin cannot explain.
Let these symptoms go
like dead, yellow leaves fumbling
in swift, guiltless currents downstream.
Downstream where the slum
lies in waiting.
Downstream where the idols’ headstones
are half-buried in muddy rain.
Downstream where animal tracks
are never seen.
Downstream where
the lens of love is cleaned with red tissue.
Downstream where the herdsmen
herd their flock and beat the drums
promising a new river that never comes.
Downstream there lives
a part of me that is sealed like a paper envelope
with thick tape.
It watches the river like the underside of a bridge
waiting to fall if the seal is broken.
To plunge into the current when I am opened
by some unforgiving hand unseen.
To be drawn downstream
in the gravity of a thousand minds
who simply lost their way.
A thousand minds that twisted the river
away from earth’s sweetness
into the mine shaft of men’s greed.
So it must be.
So it must be.
Open me to the kindness
of a child’s delicate hand
when it reaches out to be held.
Let it comfort me
when my bridge falls and the swift, guiltless currents
pull me downstream
where all things forgiven are lost.
Where all things lost are forgiven.
