Always One More

author’s note:

As a boy, I used to watch the cicadas come out of their shells.  After spending 19 years underground, cicadas resurface, shed their shells, fly around for a few days, mate, then die.

Needless to say, after 19 years, they took their time coming out of those shells.  But I found it doesn’t help them if you try to expedite the process.


ENDLESS CELEBRATION

I’m still celebrating--
it’s an on-going process,
this life:
         I’ve celebrated the weight
of depression:
I’ve circled like a snake
to get out from under
that weight--
         I am the happy snake
         shedding the green skin
         that has gone gray.

Yes, I celebrate, I celebrate
like the mountain sheep
living in a cave
under a cut-ice winter’s wind--

like the glacier that knows
that one inch more
is one inch closer to freedom.

I celebrate
like the tide
that has learned
it can not fight the strings
of the moon.

I celebrate
as Jesus must have celebrated
when he felt himself
stretched beyond limit
but decided
that pain is only
a matter of time--

I celebrate
like the blood
that falls to the ground
and becomes the only tree
for miles around.

Like the cloud
that destroys itself
by giving up its rain.
Like the cicada
that breaks its shell--
though release means death.

How many deaths do I need?
I feel more as the skin softens,
as I bare myself to the fresh air.

My heart rises to the horizon
but without yet reaching dawn.

Why does that last step
always seem to be
the most tedious–?--
the most tenuous, the most
painful?

And after the last one,
there is always one more.
Always one more.

But I’m still celebrating--
it’s an on-going process--
one that I would never
--ever--
want to end.

© 2009, Michael R. Patton
earnest audio
new steps