The Clearing

The Clearing

Light filters through pregnant rain clouds,
washes down walls—
trees sitting on edges of ravines,
where a bird calls.

Call the butter in milk,
soft and flexible, there if you stir things up.
Call the oil in a soybean,
full of nourishing texture,
unknowing its plight,

if only the soybean would
combine with a thousand others,
we’d feed an army, led
by birds under the dark morning sky, marching
to the day when all birds fly, marching
to the day when all birds call,
in the moment’s pulse,

a thump in my chest, quickening
in response to the call, soft and flexible, melting
in the filtered light, seeing it awakens
the dark with the good,
and the soft—
awakened by the sound
of a raindrop,
splat on a leaf, holding
nothing but my gaze,
which then moves upward and up,
up and up to the mountainous sky,

full of heavy water, ready
to cry, to cry in joyous relief—
the army was a dream—
I am not a warrior! I am merely
ready to pour through the clouds,
and chase the sunlight
down to me, to wash me clean,
to clear my heart and mind,
to soak my face, to let me let go,
to let go of the mud and dirt and grime
I’ve collected on the way
to this clearing.