If I Sing
If I sing, I weep.
If I sing joy, even sing joy, I weep.
If I weep, if I weep, if cries splatter from me,
if I sputter snot and spit
down my chin, my shirt, your shirt,
if I shake and shake until you fear I'll shake apart,
don't be afraid for me, don't be ashamed;
I will not break from this, will not die,
but from lack of it, from the closing,
and I will not close anymore, will not deny anymore
the child I was who could not
cry out has kept crying in
me. And now that I can cry I will sing,
even if my song comes shoved out
on the wave of snot and spit I swallowed not
to cry, I will sing.
-Martin Jude Farawell
With thanks to Donna Glee Williams for sharing this poem with us at the recent Life is a Verb retreat. Let us all sputter snot and spit and sing.
[photo from here]
