Humility

Hum i lity: 6/01

Sometimes I get jealous of other people and wish I were like them. I sometimes even wish everyone were the same, but one day I thought about my wish and decided it was a horribly stupid wish. On the school playground everyone would play the same thing. You couldn’t find your home because every house in the world would be the same. After I thought of all this destruction I liked myself more. I thought there is only one me and I am the only person who can be that person..
The Silly Wish – by Kayla Jordan (5th grade, school essay)

I have seen the naked lobes
of Pentecostal women at the Wal-Mart Store,
Their unadorned necks and broad foreheads
set, like polished alabaster
lifted lovely from the doilies.


I have seen a dog
radiant with pleasure
at the fact of my existence.


I have seen a shadow
tangle with my feet or fade;
He has stretched but never strayed.
We parted for some seconds once – on a high river bluff
I saw him emulate a diving swan,
But I pierced him
Like a bull’s-eye
on the water’s top.


Note:
I’ve never seen my shadow
Join the shadow of a bullet,
or that of a falling house.


(Selah.)


I have heard
A guitar fluoresce
In my ear,
Felt a flute flutter, dance, or curl
Like streamers
In my brain:


I have framed the moving
Ever evaporating earth
At least 36,000 times.
It goes with the job, and my love.


Indeed,
I have raised my glass at the sky;
Channeled particles and waves
Into my Nikon tele-porting--time catching
Space-mashing--memory enhancing –
light encoding – sun imploding
trap.


I have pressed
Fragile disappearing blossoms
Into the future,
placed huge mountains in a box
I have surveyed the tossed aftermath of pain,
and talked to a woman who rode
a funnel-cloud for two hundred feet.


I have stood at the top of the isle
Over four hundred times,
As some angel of a woman
gave her eyes to me
(flash)
And then her soon-to-be husband.


I have stood two feet away
From the most powerful man on earth --
No one in between.
He ignored me as I clicked –
I thought of leaping up and laying hands:
“Hey, I’m praying for you brother”
but I figure the guys in black
might misunderstand, and drop me on the spot.


Three hours later
I would photograph
The richest man in America;
He was shy and uncomfortable
Before my lens –
and I wondered how he knew
who were his friends.


Indeed,
I have photographed
The un-powerful, and un-rich;
A mass of un-shy children spilling
Like maniac pups into my wide angle-lens,
They stretched their septums forward
Into the glass like horses,
Rolling eyes and making faces,
Pushing me over, in the slums of Juarez.


I have also lived to photograph my children.
--


Could it really be that
I have seen three persons
Slip into the world --
bud and build like nimbus clouds
play and argue;
Move like ballerinas
in the living room to the booming
a two hundred dollar stereo.


I have tasted milk
From a hidden source.
I have felt the breasts
Of my beloved
Lap against my chest
Like the wake from a boat.
I have seen a woman
who once screamed:
“Don’t you ever say you love me” --
take my hand
and apologize for saying “damn.”


I have seen an encroaching kingdom
Building turrets in our hearts,
The grand physician
fixing broken history.


I have seen
The sun on the sky
Behind the fog
All clean and blonde
Like a compact disk


I have heard
whispers from another world.
I have eaten with the King of Kings.
I have talked to myself
And had a good conversation.


It is true:
I never asked to be born, but if I could
flicker into life for just one moment
in order to answer the question,
How in the world, would I
having tasted awareness
then refuse?


Could I – having been me,
ever wanted
to be anyone else?


I know my pains,
and mine have been enough to question
my continuance, once or twice …
but then, I don’t know yours, and
am not sure, that I could ever
take that risk …


So before I swap my life, for any other
I ask,
Would he come
with salvation or a camera;
Would he have a taste for small odd verses?
Would he come
with my same wife, or mom, or kids?


Would he have you
as friends?


(pause)


(Thank YOU, Thank You .... Thank You very much)


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