Everyman Atlas
You think, I can’t do it, what if they hate me?
I think, in-utero, my mother hated me
I was raped, age 4, by a janitor, keys jangling.
I am wrangling
back my query to the apathetic, ethnically-ambiguous 7-11 cashier,
“Please, just tell me who I am!”
On and on you trudge
clenching the lie that you need earn a little love
while the Beloved courts His life within you.
You slouch on looking for some sign that you’re okay
while angels trill your value to those wise enough to fall in love with love.
When it’s achingly hard and yet you find love at hand
You are shuffling towards the promised land
The Lord has more faith in you than you in Him.
Your tears fall as blood down His cheeks as you blaspheme
that you cry in vain.
God has a magnificent plan for you.
Has that not been your new age refrain?
The Beloved waits- His soft cheek pressed against yours
for you to one day, some way
turn.
That holy day when you shrug off your self-fashioned shackles
that are like the flimsy string that binds the elephant who lumbers free
the moment he realizes he is bigger than all of this-
then, you lift the whole world up-
you, crazy, blessed Everyman Atlas!
‘Every time one person resolves one issue,
The whole of humanity moves forward.’
So you dance onward
to the haunting cadence drumming upon your open heart-
Two is too many. We are one
love.
‘Every time one person resolves one issue, The whole of humanity moves forward’ is attributed to Ron Hulnick, president of USM. He gave me this sentence and asked me to write a poem with it. Here it is. This poem is dedicated to Ron.
