Mudslide

Mudslide

I was just sitting there.
My feet startled gray rocks from the water.
I was on the edge of a mudslide,
but unable to dispense with my spot.
Sometimes it is best to let things slide.
There is a time for flow.
Any huge build up must release at some point.
I was not afraid of the thick wave.
I had decided to let it move past me.
Sometimes when it is peaceful,
I can smell the earth rotting behind my back.
I can see the lay of the land returning
to a roll of renewal, and nothing stands
or stays the same.
Here is death & karma & pleasure.
They are infested with babies and trees.
They are turning pavement & garbage
into the smooth face of the sea.
There are a million individual faces.
Each is real but disappearing
with regularity & essence.
We are all just sitting,
trying to ignore the divine humor
of a mudslide at our backs.
Trying to imagine we are being packed
with a beauty treatment.
Because it could be true.
Because something good might come
out of sitting stoic, kicking rocks,
admiring the view,
even as the mud is rolling

Reviews

[holly]

A few weeks ago, when I couldn't find anything of my account on Writer's Cafe, I realized that one of the things I would miss most about losing a presence on this site would be hearing your voice. Today I tried to get into WC again, and not only was everything back, there you were with a song of acceptance on your lips.
"Sometimes when it is peaceful,
I can smell the earth rotting behind my back."
What a striking image. It evokes the circular nature of life, the value in death and renewal. Even as we seem at last to be able to rest, life with all its messiness boils up behind us. And what I especially like about this poem is that the speaker doesn't sugar-coat the awfullness of destruction, doesn't justify it, simply acknowedges it and lets it move on by.

[Emily B]

even as the mud is rolling . . .
I think acceptance is usually the best course of action, these words will draw me back another day.