Like the Hindu
We are
Born over and over
Like a crumpled wet calf
Dropped on the ground
Landing in a glistening lump
Stirring in blurred amazement
Born to bear what can be born
Of childhood’s endless scraped knees
Torn elbows, rolled in dirt
Like floured chicken wings
Mind and body Splattered
With puddled mud rings
Born to bare flesh, red faced in longing
Shedding skin after oily skin
To look at the wasteland within
Pulled by sweet woman
From the mirrored ditch
Sunk in mottled shades, slumping
Cells replaced hourly
So that the Soul in rubble, is a rabble
Rising in the minute minutes
From slag pile to tower of Babel.
Born to process down the aisle
In fearsome desire, Buddha’s best friend
Drunk on fresh milk
Clutching satin and silk
Until love’s over and over wonder
Becomes the slower and slower blunder
And the wrinkled gray light of the skin
Must be shed yet again.
Born to be tired
Born to have seen it all.
Collapsing in mundane pain
To scramble and wake again
And wake again
And wake again.
Until the world is a parabola
Of kindness and death.
Let me be born this last time
Let me get it right!
Like a Hindu
Let me look in light
With every passing moment
Then to shed the final husk
Don’t make me do it again
Don’t make me do it again.
Don’t make me do it again.
Joshua Kight
4/21/09