Raise the Dust

If we breathe a little slower

we’ll last a little longer.

The poetry of life might beat

so that our heart-seams heal.

If we walk a little slower,

taste the pace instead of outrun it,

if we close the doors of all the

stress… well, easier said than done.

I’m not here any more. I gave up my

self for Lent and listened to the

Avett Brothers a little more.

Classical music, too. Mompou and

Barber are underrated for healing.

If you look closely at the brushstrokes of

Van Gogh, Monet, the dots of Suerat,

you will momentarily inhale the infinite.

There are no judgments here. Flakes of

relevance are the new snow.

In Mexico there is a rural church

outside Puerto Vallarta where a

velvet Jesus hangs in black light.

The doors open to their velvet

cathedral where the glow mimics the

northern lights. It’s okay to feel

sacred here. Children kick soccer balls and

tires on dusted streets. Mothers hang

laundry on tight lines strung between

scrawny trees. A tiny café serves fresh

fish caught off the coast. It’s dark enough

here that stars are thick as mist. For

some of us the mist is a transitory

residence. If we walk slowly through

this mist, hands held as loose tethers to

this earth, our footprints raise the dust

of future memories, surround us in the

final blanket of our comfort.

Martin A. Bartels, c2012, working draft.

Part of my new collection, “Unlanguage”