Community Starts Here

Community starts here Under this tree of sprawling branches With thighs pressed against sinuous gnarled roots, Our heads nodding and shaking with whurring yellow leaves Adorning our heads and fluttering off into the river beside us, Only to stick to the dipping twigs of the tree in such cool August air, Such a smoky light, community will start right here. Community starts here In this small over-crowded coffee shop, with faces in late morning glow, as old friends reunite to the clang of dishes and the sliding of porcelain On faux-mahogany, elbow-elbow expressions brighten from the whiteness of day: "I got a copy of my documentary on DVD In my car that I can give you, if you like?" "Oh really, well, okay..." This is the post-Sunday Mass air Where light and love swirl as opportunity and re-emergence And everything feels as natural as a breeze, with the fluttering of Newsletters, roommates wanted ads, yoga lessons, and announcement That a new spoken Word artist is arriving in town who's blind but has a dog and took the bus from Ohio and reads his words like honey for angels, This is where community starts. Community starts here On the playground of a hundred tumbling children Screaming, tugging, jumping, laughing, crying, and dreaming. Slow this time down and imagine them all 30-years-old with suits And private thoughts and caged feelings and fully-fleshed with the Citizen's kinetic energy to do right and wrong, good and bad, Picture them as you, then picture how you're reflected in their eyes like Revolving suns with times for dinner, and now flash back to the monkey bars, Back to the open-souled shining young stars, here on their battleground, in this galaxy of fun and terror our community finds it seedlings. From the cafe to the riverbank, From the playground to the People's Court of Whatever You Can Think Up, Community starts everywhere, Everywhere, But my bathroom.