Give It Up

If you were the only Omnipotent Force in the universe, one would hope you’d have a certain sense of humor: the kind without any of the usual mean or sarcastic twists. A good laugh is one thing. Cruel guffaws, another.

If you’ve been born only once, one would hope you’d carve your coordinates into the bark of the nearest tree. Hurry. You will be exiled, left to find your own way home. If you calm yourself, you will realize that you already know.

If you were born accidentally, knowing more than you can handle, you might wish for an easy exit. Instead, you are destined to watch your mountains come down, one by one. There is no safe distance. Even the act of observing changes the outcome.

Those who were born amphibious reproduce in obscure complexities. The permeability of skin, the need to be near still waters; this is where shades of gray form a rainbow. If you are brave enough, you can touch your own inner longings.

Darkness is an absence of bioluminescent beings flitting from branch to branch, swimming from cave to cave. Of course, you once had gills. Your sorrow is justified and holy, but it will drag you down. Peer steadily through the cracks to find the light.

Heat-seeking missiles zero in on warm hearts, but you’ll only bruise yourself trying to escape. Soften your eyes. Clutch the amulet you were given in another life. Make the signs of various crosses and give it up for the godlike being playing the cello.

And give it up for the rising sun and low hanging fruit. And the shivering murmur of laughing hyenas hunting in the neighborhood. Give it up for molds, yeasts, fungi and friendship. Revel in the divine but fleeting salvations of any given day.