Belonging

CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ

We wear the weekday hats 

and costumes, 

in the stores, the factories,

the offices,

and weekend gatherings,

baseball 

and football,

warrior games,

flags and anthems;

and at night

in the bars,

the face paint, tattoos, dances; 

and on weekends

in churches and synagogue, 

the skull cap and fringed shawl, 

psalms and tribal chants, 

and every refrain means 

we belong, we belong, we belong.

Beneath the melodies,

between the words,

a silence, 

a nakedness

covered by the caps

and uniforms, 

stillness

like the moment 

we were born,

helpless and beheld -

on the edge between

death and life,

being and longing to be -   

when we witnessed  

that before anything

there was only

love.