Just Dust

To hate, I place my heart up to the mirror
and press it against its depthless double--
flattening one and flattering the other.
The pain is self-inflicted.
The only trace,
some bloody echo of the instant
and all the reasons requiring such violence.

You, I imagine, feel nothing
more than the weight of a forgetful year
as you let ash become a landscape.

I hoped to start a seed
from some 40 years of mud.

But now it is up to me to trust
yet again. So, walking
by a flooded rice field,
I sink my hands into its rich, black thickness,
layered of seasons and frog crap
and 10,000 insect corpses.
Squeezing, the earth sucks,
as though things hidden underground
are gasping for breath.
I can feel my fathers
slipping through my fingers,
unwilling to release me
from a grasping more than gravity.

Standing, the mud starts
to dry on my hands like gloves of earth.
Inside, I feel my pulse
throbbing at my finger tips and palms,
more evident as everything gets a bit constricting.

But, before all the rain evaporates,
I pull out my heart--no different
than a yellow mustard seed-- and plant it
in the garden of my hands.
Between my thumbs, I whisper:
“I vow to abandon you
to the moments.”



by jerry gordon
7.21.06