Piso Mojado

                                    For Bill and Caroline

Do not despise the days of small things easier for

A camel to pass through than for rich men.

For the rich hire cars without thinking but

A camel would not be here or think much

More than a person not exposed to this.

For you find your mind where your treasure is

And follow what you value, thinking this

Is all but wanting more, wanting when wet

To be dry, ride when walking, to not think,

Not think at all when you feel disappointed,

Annoyed to be anointed, to be at all.

You did not choose to be here, not like this,

Not to be born, let alone baptized by

These random elements out of the air.

Where you are is where you are so be there.

Be here and pay attention, valuing time,

The sound of your soles on moist pavement making

This street a part of something more, a path

That leads by grateful steps to further doors.

If you were in a fishing village, shops

Filled with T-shirts and tourists what would you

Make of that if you find this nothing nothing

To pay attention to? See the trees if

You like, if granular details please you.

But what are these impressions without you?

What do you bring to forest this deserted

Road lined by dripping pines and poplars while

You walk alone in places others walked?

This is the place you must choose what you leave

And what you take away, where you are now.

Let this be the site where you make your church

And gather your associated thoughts,

A meeting place for revelation, or

Go on alone with only scattered notions

Which dry and fade like T-shirts over time,

This pavement left behind, beyond salvation.

Often the outside fails to keep the inside

Alive through shrouded moments when a veiled

Imagination lays too few bricks here

For a foundation worthy of attendance;

This congregation of missed chances sheds

Evaporating tears as petulant

Clouds thin and misty disposition clears.

Even if all is stone gray narrow as

A needle bounded by a nutshell you

Must not avoid these feelings of unease

But pause as with the roses for a reason,

And gather grace among the tiny hands

Which build the rainbow while they kiss your face.

How quickly senses flicker like a little

Ticklish instrument, a consolation

Of those impressions signifying nothing

Most of the time if you let them drop by,

But offer a key to Heaven's gate when you

Open yourself to something unintended,

If at the crossroads for a ride not taken

But wait, while wet leaves weep and tap

A coded dance among the trove of lost

Pleasures, a cloudy day viewed with clear eyes,

Where you find that delight from simply being

Rising from this wet pavement like missed

Syllables hissed with smiling lips in words

Unspoken in a language never learned,

And by chance ever after you may yet

Find under sunny dispositions more

Content than previously tended to

Shine from the noontime shadows sovereign

Shrined bliss, a ticket rediscovered in

The pocket of a raincoat with a dollar

Recalling long forgotten love returned.

                                                                                        

                                                                                                KLK 12/20/2008