i wonder
how many stones are stacked
on each and every heart.
what agonizing lies hidden, beneath all the trying.
what anguishing beauty
rises in the gash of all our darker skies.
even as we cultivate our thin veneers
the undertow
is a bramble of dark fruit
hoping to be picked in grateful hands.
willing
to be devoured,
but only in slow careful
moments.
we sow a garden
all the while courting death.
we put on our morning clothes
when we should wear our dreams.
we whisper politely when we long to
howl at the moon.
our furious souls
wait wait wait
beneath
our polished, tethered thoughts.
yet we are blindsided when we recognize the face of
raw
unabashed
uncensored
beauty.
we are drawn to sacred ground
but
even the garden
tangles
with ruin and death.
beautiful sadness lies in every decline.
each
falling
scarlet
leaf.
the waning of the moon.
a shooting star.
exquisite little deaths,
we teach our children to make wishes on.