LIFE CHOICES
Life
Made a home
In a handful of dust
Set in resistant ground
Would the dry land
Withhold consent
A host rejecting
This foreign body?
The teenage fiancée
Between fear and trust
Said, Let it be
Knowing parched roots
Were in need
Of the Life she would carry
Beyond borders
So Life learned to walk
In the valley
where
New beginnings so often
Turn to old ends
And received wisdom
Gets it wrong, again
Where
Amnesiac cycles
Reheat history
In shiny new bowls
And fresh taste
So often dries stale
On the tongue
Life came to
The crossroads where
Beauty and horror meet
Poured itself out
Disrupting hard soil
with renewal
While the earth
Quietly spun
Life perseveres
Calls as we pause
Between fear and trust
Exclusion and welcome
Commands our dry bones
To get up and walk
And carry the life
That enables green shoots
To invade concrete yards