Canto

Canto

What do you think
you would find
if you dug down
that deep?

Someone you don’t
know, who speaks
in a language
you have never heard?

Maybe it’s time
to learn
a new language.

Maybe you think
you’d find a monster?
Large and hairy,
with sharp teeth
and huge hands?

Maybe it’s time
to feel wind
in your fur, time
to point nose
into scent of future.
Maybe it’s time
to bite down,
leaving teeth marks
in hard cracked
soil of the past,
time to learn how to grasp
what is truly yours.

What do you think
you would find
if you dug down
that deep?

A feather of truth?
Maybe so many
you could learn
how to fly, from
here to there,
or anywhere you
want to go.

Maybe you’d find
the mud of your soul,
hold it wet, glistening,
in those huge monster
hands, pat it, finally
shape it into what
you’ve always known
you could be.

What do you think
you would find,
if you dug down
that deep?

Maybe just a pebble
of fool’s gold?
We all need to be foolish
for a while,
or risk the chance
never to begin.

What if you found instead,
the Sorcerer’s Stone,
all the magic you knew
when you were a child,
before the world
knocked if from
your head?

Are you afraid
of what you might
find if you dug
down that deep?

A wounded heart,
bruised and beaten,
barely able to breath?

You could lift it,
cleanse it with healing tears,
cradle it in your arms,
bear it back to that home
you have made,
filled with treasures
you have found
with all of your digging.

Feed it, nurture it
with the rich moist
mud of your soul.
Fan it with the feathers
of your truth. Sing
it a lullaby in a language
you have newly learned.
Whisper it’s secret name,
written at the center
of a Sorcerer’s Stone.
Promise to always protect
it with huge sharp teeth,
then teach it,
using only the tips
of very sensitive fingers,
to dig even deeper.

Elizabeth Crawford  11/05