By Losing Ground, You've Won

Walk with blue, with steel and straw,

With bones, with grating sand.

Move with fluid, lifeless gate,

If only to withstand.

 

Greet the sighs of morning’s mist,

With arms pressed to one’s side.

Fold the clothes and push the doors,

To charge with limbs too wide. 

 

Like was told to you, to all,

Create a life alone.

A meaning-filled forget-me-not,

Too bright a light once shone.

 

A set of stomps to break the grass,

A path weaved on and through.

With tear-stained prints of heavy gate,

Where nothing grows anew.

 

A pause, a break, a glance around,

A softening, perhaps.

A feeling, wait, but was it there?

A set of earthen taps.

 

A breeze as warm as once was cool,

A labored breath let go.

A lifting up of lightened steps,

A welcomed undertow.

 

A pull, magnetic, frantic still,

Resistance, but at first.

Before one feels, the orange glow,

Devours all the worst.

 

Unclasp the calloused, tired limbs,

Relax the aching mind.

Allow the breeze to change one’s thoughts,

And let the arms unbind.

 

A hand is just a hand, it seems,

Until it finds a match.

Built for strict utility,

For what, you ask, to catch?

 

It matters not the weight you bear,

But put it down a bit.

Place it on the wind’s sweet breath,

It need not be a fit.

 

Two arms outstretched and fingers splayed,

Eyes gaze softly on,

The lighting dim, the knees feel soft,

The ground creeps toward the dawn.

 

With pause, unmoving, watching still,

The colors rearrange.

Unburdened hands around the space,

That subtle, starts to change.

 

A magnet pulls in every way,

Within and not about,

Inside the circle occupied,

Within, for those without.

 

In toward the center of one’s own,

And signaled by the hand.

A warmth envelopes all who pass,

It rises from the land.

 

The more was shouldered, less was placed,

On forces there to bear.

The less the symbiotic nudge,

Was offered for your care.

 

A stranger bumps aside of arms,

Outstretched under the sun.

Now, for once, assuring thus,

By losing ground, you’ve won.