Help the opal
find its wheel,
help the chimney
find the sky,
a jewel has meaning
but not always one
the books explain,
find its meaning
by wearing it— with care
because who knows
where the smoke goes.
A thing knows its own mind–
do you know yours?
That is the question
every door asks
as you go through.
Or even just wait outside,
patient, waiting
for me to open it and say
you are the diamond,
please come in.

2.
But of course that is not
the end of it. The diamond
has no door or only one
the soul alone can enter,
whatever the soul is
or means. The mystery deepens.
The diamond gleams in the sun
but deep down in it
I saw as a child
a pure and radiant blue.
Study your mother’s engagement ring—
it gives the first faint glimmer
of what you will become.

3.
I use this word ‘you’ a lot,
it is small as an opal,
precious as diamond.
But don’t get me wrong—
the beauty of you
and the beauty of me
is that we can be anyone at all,
depending. Depending
on whether you are listening
or speaking, the words
around you like emeralds,
pearls, carnelians all strung
together coherently,
a necklace. Put it on,
wear it to know what they mean.

4.
I [verb] you.
This is the greatest
vector language knows.
Wind in the trees—
see what I mean?

5.
So we are beasts of burden
who carry words to their intended,
and somehow they sustain us
on the way, some of us
even grow fat from carrying
so many words so far,
so far. I really do wish you were near.

6.
In India they let cows
walk on the highway
right amidst the cars
and trucks and bikes and horses.
Sometimes they loop flowers
on the cow’s neck. Sometimes
I feel like a cow in traffic
dazed with other people’s
strengths and speeds but there
I am, four feet to the asphalt,
lurching slow forward.
Towards what? Not the slaughterhouse–
this is India remember, ahimsa,
no, towards somewhere
what I am or what I give
is needed, honored even
in a half-unconscious way.
I mean towards you, ready or not.

7.
O the glint of one
sun on so many windshields!
Head for the lake or the river
to see the single sun again
smile up at you from calm water
and your own face in it,
your mother found at last.

                                             23 July 2020