Tender Belly

And though we fled the flaws of it all, I see now perfect design in the moment of his body. Perhaps that's why nothing comforts me like the perfect honesty of the body, its complexity & contradictions & refusal to leave anything unattended. It care takes the metabolism of every stimulus with painstaking thoroughness. It holds every dream unthought, every unsung wounding, every fancy of longing, every deep whim passed by, every cherished silence, every fullness, every emptiness in its cellular weave of blood & tissue.

Why should we begrudge its pains & aches when they are such a selfless favor, such a generous grace: embracing without judgment the ink of every stroke. The endlessly gracious body does not know the limits of our attention. It carries everything for us & waits patiently as we pass it by. And if we listen, it will tell us what it feels with the wisdom & frankness of a child. It will take us on a treasure hunt to some corner of expanse. And yet we insist it is the body which is limited and the spirit which stretches across galaxies? Perhaps the mind discerns (only that which is conscious, or close to it), but it is the body which is enlightened already. The body never left a single thing unattended. It never left a single thing behind. It loved every detail. Every crumb along the way. The seeds of democracy lie in the body. Its attention treats all as equals.

And this is not to disparage the mind. it plays & twirls & somersaults with the sweetest feet. It dives & dashes and hides & flashes. It keeps us company when we cannot comprehend & comforts us with tales & ties us with tethers that help us feel safe. And when the body wants to unwind & unravel, sometimes the mind even cooperates. Sometimes it takes its long, slender fingers & looses the tethers, wipes away the dust, lifts up the shirt and touches the tender belly of the body until blood is a rushing river and heart is a pulsing sky. And perhaps even, the mind looks upon the infinite stories of the endless body much like a man just released from prison drinks in the star-filled night. Light older than his sentence and fresher than his newly cleaned skin. And nothing more real than the breeze on his body and the cold in his lungs.

Because the infinite cannot survive without the earth.

And then the breeze is gone, and the lungs that fill and sigh & the skin that chills & the hair that falls on cheek. And the fingers that touch tender belly are gone.

And even the persistence of the spinning earth does not dwarf this disappearance.