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Dancing Above the Horizon

In youth, I lived in gray
Gathering pearls, blood, and dust of those before me,
Straying beyond lines of black and white
Testing-Detesting- Spoonfed sweet lilac by society.

My roots twine deeply into the soil
Spreading different directions like a
Child's hand, showing five.
They coil around my restless heart
Striving- Reaching- Seeking
My soul struggles through the crusted earth
Clawing upward, sloughing layers of sweat and skin.

Then as the earth fractures, the bloom
Inches its way out, shedding the sheath and gasping air.
Finally- first breath- breathing- breaking through, and I weep.
The moon mocks my tears.
At first I am frozen- still- then a twitch-a sloth- I move.
I wander through the forest, but with shift and slant of sun
I am lost, and though it shines bright, it scoffs my fears.

Exhausted, I kneel by a crystal pool.
As my tear falls, the water circles outward,
Folding and unfolding. Fish nip at the distorted face 
As it floats away in the rings. I watch through eyes of a fool.

But as days slip into years, I accept the pearls, blood, and dust.
And the sun unveils a place I had not sought...
A place no crow had called, no leaf had fell, no step had trod.

I gaze back into the pool and the circles now contract,
Slowly closing back to the core.
The glassy surface forms a thousand images...then just one.

Now I am in the wind's whisper, the lark's aria, the parentage of earth.
Now I challenge the moon, and polish the sun.
I laugh at its uncertainty as it ducks behind clouds.
Now- I dance above the horizon.

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