Lambaste

by Zinta Aistars


On the surface—scatterbrained,
skittering thoughts like a dust bunny race,
multiplying beneath beds
(not always my own),
collecting in corners
for a whispery conferring of like minds
and kindred war cries, collections of lost
musings, first impressions, final glances,
over the shoulder and shrugging,
endless parade of comings and goings,
U-turns and turnabouts, fence sitting and jolting,
escape routes and underground tunnels.
The mind is harebrained and stupid with wondering,
or absent entirely,
a skull hollow and reverberating with echoes,
yodeling and a bounce
of one mirrored and remirrored and remirrored sound,
begun at birth, that primal pitch and yowl,
hilltop to mesa to abyss,
wall to wall and sky to earth,
avalanche of loosened pebbles
that, eventually, accumulate
into secret mountains of jagged and ripped loose
summits, those flighty afterthoughts.
Stony perch for the stoned with meditations,
revelations, giddy with epiphanies of ricocheted
reflections, sweet enough for a greeting card.
It is the rumination that makes the man.
Gives him face. Eyes with which to see,
wading pools to a splash of soul, aching chasm
that it might be, bottomless pit and insatiable
appetite—the cup that can never be filled
nor drunk empty.
The scattering of thoughts returning
to form flesh, blood, spirit,
dust bunny of a soul,
held together by the stitching of dreams
and the ever-patient grace of the divine.