Words&Dirt

Three hundred pounds of geodes,
Brought back from wilderness,
Each with its own secret,
Some savory, some sweet,
Some blatant, some discrete.

Cut them open, one by one,
Spill Earth’s contents, cut and run,
Build a map of what you found,
Out there,
Give nature’s mystery a new home,
Shut away,
Hidden from everyone but you.

Remember that day, at the lake?
Three fishing poles became nine,
Six children became twenty,
Your prize slung up from the deep canyon bed,
Cut them open, one by one,
Oh how stories grow when we tell them.

Of all the organs,
The brain with its duplicity and endless breadth,
The skin with its roughness and imperfect hue,
The tongue with its liquid formations,
The heart with its ceaseless rhythm, never a day off,
Cut them open, one by one.

One crescent moon will get you there,
Half of what was, before separation,
But is ending your journey half-whole,
Really much of an arrival?

Of all the organs,
The liver’s revenge is coldest and swift.

And so your passage lifted its ceiling,
Revealing a sky without end, every color,
And you limped boldly to a new horizon,
Oblivious always to the costs that accrued,
To the daughter you loved but never really knew.