A Daily Joy to be Alive - Jimmy Santiago Baca

Larry Robinson Lrobpoet at sonic.net
Fri Mar 17 07:33:31 PDT 2017


A Daily Joy to be Alive

No matter how serene things
may be in my life,
how well things are going,
my body and soul
are two cliff peaks
from which a dream of who I can be
falls, and I must learn 
to fly again each day,
or die.

Death draws respect 
and fear from the living.
Death offers 
no false starts. It is not
a referee with a pop-gun
at the startling 
of a hundred yard dash.

I do not live to retrieve
or multiply what my father lost
or gained.

I continually find myself in the ruins
of new beginnings,
uncoiling the rope of my life
to descend ever deeper into unknown abysses,
tying my heart into a knot 
round a tree or boulder,
to insure I have something that will hold me,
that will not let me fall.

My heart has many thorn-studded slits of flame
springing from the red candle jars.
My dreams flicker and twist
on the altar of this earth,
light wrestling with darkness,
light radiating into darkness,
to widen my day blue,
and all that is wax melts
in the flame-

I can see treetops!
 
 
	- Jimmy Santiago Baca


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