THE BOTTOM OF THE LAKE

I didn’t want to touch the bottom

all the muck and messy weeds

tangled there to pull me down

in to the shallows

 

It didn’t matter that the sun’s

scorch in the big blue made

the lake’s call beyond inviting

to feel the great cool of it

 

My teeth hurt in the think

of the muck, toes squishing

at the edge shivering a tense

feeling of ‘I don’t think so.’

 

Get me into the boat fast

Fast to skim the surface there

Out into the deep cool above

the slime in the way below

 

Through the Lily pads and

cat tails waving in the summer

breeze their roots all in the

tangle of my avoidance

 

I ignore the metaphor of this

Of what I can’t see in life

below the surface of living

of the walk into the depths

 

In the muck and slime of it

when my teeth hurt and

my heart knows all that tangle

in the way below growing

 

What to know of life’s lake is

that out of it all in the mess of it

grow the lilies and the cat tail

called up to the sun and sky

 

And on the beauty of the surface

below lives the twist and snarl

of where is all came from to

rise and show their splendor

 

I don’t have to like the mush of it

The pull of my feet into the dark

tangle of weeds and roots feeling

my invasion, hungry for me

 

And I can give myself to how the

dark deep lets the light pull what

desires to flower up to the Sun

and float on the surface joyfully