Cries

I was born
and when I stopped crying
I was shown my home
I loved it
I went through a wall
and I was taught everyone was an angel
I learned to speak my tongue
I was told,
"With these words you can tell the truth"

I climbed the mountain behind my home
I could see over the walls
and as far as my eyes reached,
everywhere were angels
and there were no ends

But when I came back down
my home was gone
and no one welcomed me as an angel.
My tongue sounded like nonsense.
The mirrors said,
I was a foreigner.
The silences said,
my words were noise.

Not heard
not understood
I cried
without meaning.

I cried, my tongue a stump of sorrow.
I cried, my lungs a bellows of joy.
I cried, my mouth like the open hollow of the sky.
I cried.

I cry
and in it find a home
not of place or flag or time,
but of this lost and momentary
bark of the heart
echoing off from others' lips.

I live
in this ever unnamable emotion
always breaking
open like a seed that can only grow in abandoned soil
and takes each road back to wild.



by jerry gordon
5.13.09