Touch

Why waste your life believing
that the sun is above, the earth below,
only to discover too late, too late,
that starlight gushes from every pore
the moment your body begins to dance?
Why travel from here to there?
All journeys are over
but the deepening of now.
Your heartbeat is the shaman's drum,
your mind the rattled hollow of a shell.
Seeds of grief give you rhythm.
Don't move, be moved.
There is only one talisman left to find:
the flame you were before
you started the search.
Ferns made fists all Winter,
waiting for your belly to unbreathe.
Spring is the intuition
crinkled in cocoons: your laughter
can do something about that.
Now fall among bulbs in black soil
on the only world that is really yours,
and touch heaven with your knees.

Painting by Diana Bryer