Stalk

A poem about endings

When thistles die
they are remembered 
for thrusting forth unbidden
from scorched or supple earth,
setting skies and eyes ablaze
with majesty made color,
then withering to feed  
life to come, 
if we can get past the thorns.

How could we call this an ending
when the world only spins?
Revealing wonder with every loss,
beauty in revolution
medicine from bone and stalk.
This then, my friends, is the only ending that matters:
when you stop pretending you are outside the cycle.

my Muse is a laughing whore,
thorny, delicious.
Hides in plain site, 
prolific, enigmatic.
Requires careful approach.
Never sells herself,
only spells us into 
deeper rustles and churnings
of the patter and burnings 
of hearts ever expanding,
ever learning how to listen.

I have yet to stop pretending
she is not also me.

She demands more honest food
than the noise we consume.
No swill or shill will do
only the tempered prima materia
of what first seems beyond approach,
but which grows, unbidden,
in every disturbed place.

Let thorns warn you,
there is danger here,
but also delight.
To find medicine for what ails you
bring your skeletons to light.
Brave the piercing
of such a question:

What lives beyond 
the end of the world?

Photo by Philippe Oursel