Jordan’s Song by Clayton Fenrick

I just want to escape this frightened

disposition where I watch my belly grow

and my dreams shrink, hair falling out

as I think more and more realistically,

sinking into adulthood uneasily but repeatedly

by letting go of the youthful notion that

we are all here for a reason.

Muted trumpets sound

and the drum beats loud, its been so long since

we danced on hallowed ground, around an ocean

of souls surrounded and close, an unstoppable

mystery permeating our clothes and toes and

shoe soles, our myriad footprints lead the way.
Will we stay where our parents stayed?

Primordial pattern retracing its steps slept

and dreamt of a cosmic beach stretching

ever out of reach, ocean lapping endless sand

a land where we all meet, will we stray where

Our ancestors strayed? Footprints lead the way.

“What is going on?” we ask while us

human extras seem to walk with heads

down lead through town by a golden string

herded by our own hopes our hearts desire to

get what we want but hope is only a form of

waiting. Our eyes and feet are sheep our

hearts the bitter shepherd

impressed by millions of moments

in front of a television,
in conversation with

bragging spotted leopards and clever feathered

coyotes hiding stripes

claw and paw reaching for what we might

possess and when we fail daring again to

hope and wait for another day, momentum

of the weekend carries the week away.

We leave behind footprints, but footprints

lead the way. Stepping through God’s

debris the air we breathe is dandruff

and the ground is bones, the rivers

are veins, and the mountains in the morning

a stoic visage, the trees are gut bacteria,

the mountains at dusk are undulating Gods

and we are lonely empty receptacles filled by one another’s

love, voice and presence, reciprocating what we’ve been

shown, we grow and become

the awakened fruit,

flutes, harps, reed pipes and lutes as the celestial

swirling wind soars through our raging lungs,

whirling and twirling a long song sung by

every living being, God’s courage echoing

in each note and syllable, every fervent

termite hill whistle, backyard thistle, silent elephant

graveyard, whale song ripple, shrill duck billed platypus

chuckle, catapults blasting to rubble thirteenth

century monasteries and castles all that is and

ever was and ever will be compiles and converges

at every point of perception.

It’s a long way every way.

Trees blossom from the inside out footprints lead

but personally I’m lost in the struggle for

love and warm skin. How can I be a

woodwind instrument for divine creation if I

can’t find motivation to brush my teeth?

Beaten, sunken, crushed by unrequited love

wreathed in lust drunken but I blushed it’s so

embarrassing to want too much, been hoping

for a year, been waiting for a year and all

the while clockwork angels passively

and acceptingly rotate their saintly gears and I

become more me. Mechanical elves and dwarves

have been taking my temperature and counting

my seconds sorting each grain of sand within this

moving mandala. Through it all the world turns round

and the lines on my hand never cease and I stretch

out grasping for relief never thinking to release

and I drop and suddenly catch the juggling stresses

I’ve been juggling. The ground is a trampoline-

it’s okay to let go, what falls just rises.

Surprised and mesmerized by the shape

of the world, what I need to know

will rise when the time and place are right.

Tonight I’ll just be alright being alone

with the hair and belly I do have in this life,

watching shadows move in their configuration

of darkness dancing with light.