August 10, 2007

• I
  Am Asking you

  To
  Come Back Home

   

  I
  am asking you to come back home

  before
  you lose the chance of seein’ me alive.

  You
  already missed your daddy,

  You
  missed your uncle Howard.

  You
  missed Luciel.

  I
  kept them and I buried them.

  You
  showed up for the funerals.

  Funerals
  are the easy part.

   

  You
  even missed that dog you left.

  I
  dug him a hole and put him in it.

  It
  was a Sunday morning, but dead animals

  don’t
  wait no better than dead people.

   

  My
  mamma used to say she could feel herself

  runnin’
  short of breath of life.  So can
  I.

  And
  I am blessed tired of buryin’ things I love.

  Somebody
  else can do that job to me.

  You’ll
  be back here then; you come for funerals.

   

  I’d
  rather you come back now and got my stories.

  I’ve
  got whole lives of stories that belong to you.

  I
  could fill you up with stories,

  stories
  I ain’t told nobody yet,

  stories
  with your name, your blood in them.

  Ain’t
  nobody gonna hear them if you don’t

  and
  you ain’t gonna hear them unless you get back home.

   

  When
  I am dead, it will not matter

  how
  hard you press your ear to the ground.

   

             
             
             
             
  -- Jo Carson

  Where
  Everything is Music

   

  Don’t
  worry about saving these songs!

  And
  if one of our instruments breaks,

  it
  doesn’t matter.

   

  We
  have fallen into the place

  where
  everything is music.

   

  The
  strumming and the flute notes

  rise
  into the atmosphere,

  and
  even if the whole world’s harp

  should
  burn up, there will still be

  hidden
  instruments playing.

   

  So
  the candle flickers and goes out.

  We
  have a piece of flint, and a spark.

   

  This
  singing art is sea foam.

  The
  graceful movements come from a pearl

  somewhere
  on the ocean floor.

   

  Poems
  reach up like spindrift and the edge

  of
  driftwood along the beach, wanting!

   

  They
  derive

  from
  a slow and powerful root

  that
  we can’t see.

   

  Stop
  the words now.

  Open
  the window in the center of your chest,

  and
  let the spirits fly in and out.

   

             
             
             
  -- Rumi

             
             
             
     (translated by
  Coleman Barks)

  • 2:49 am
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