I stand

I stand. 

Drinking the sky,

Pressing its sharp vulnerability to the roof of my mouth

Here I am.

I do not need to be explained

I am enough

A confident blue or grey or green

Whatever it needs to be.

It is. 

I stand.

Settling in the swamp

Feeling its hold sucking at my calves

Here I am.

Clogged by clever words and unordered thoughts

I ought to be enough

Yet feel so slight

And slighted by the world

I see.

I stand, 

My gifts fly as the breeze

Blowing and flapping to where they fall.

Here I am.

Not changing anything or anyone

Desperate to be noticed in the dawning night

Desperate to swim before that final light

I saw.

I stand, 

To leave a trace, a hue

A smudge of self.

Here I am.

In a symphony of strife

That shouts out to the world

This was a life.

I was.

I stand. 

To see and be seen

To hear and be heard

Here I am.

To whisper that I might be understood

To feel and be felt

That I did some good.

I hear.

I stand.

A squelching heave

A small step forward.

Here I am.

Release and stumble, each stinking stride

Takes me elsewhere against the rising tide

Nowhere in particular.

I move.

I stand. 

Away from there now over here

Stuck and sucked to a new swamp.

Here I am.

A flat earth Sisyphus pushing words against a flattened hill

Striving for clarity and peace.

To still be still.

I breathe.

I stand, 

In need of shelf on which to lay my heavy thoughts.

Or rock on which to rest my weary bones.

Here I am.

I stand, 

Bending and alone with all that I shall ever be

Standing between swamp and sky.

I yield..

I stand.

Standing between swamp and sky.

A small step forward.

Here I am

To all I am, to still be still.

To whisper that I might be understood

To feel and be felt, forever me.

I stand.

Cafe, Mornington

13 June 2018

Modified

May 13 2020