with thanks to JT
Start in the dirt,
said the photographer,
then elevate from there.
And though I was thinking
of poems, and though
he was speaking of images,
I immediately leapt to healing.
Just today I heard of a girl
who, on Christmas morning,
learned her stomach ache was cancer.
I called her mother
to console her, though
I was the one near tears.
Start in the dirt.
Ammons, my hero, once
looked to the dirt
in search of something
lowly, but all he could find
was magnificence. Within
a stanza, he launched
from ticks to galaxies.
Sometimes in the dirt
all I see is dirt.
I held back the tears until
after we hung up the phone,
then wept. I wanted to find
some shred of magnificence
in her story, but it is, perhaps,
too soon. No magnificence. I suppose
that’s the invitation to stay in the dirt,
stay there until I know, really know,
there is nothing lowly. Not
the lichen. Not the slug. Not the ant.
Not mutating cells.
Hafiz, my hero, once wrote
that everything, everything
is holy. Sometimes I want
to argue with him.
Start in the dirt. Yes.
Perhaps I will be here a while.
I have some practicing to do.
It may be some time
before I elevate.
