"Success" (7-Minute Poem For NaPoWriMo)

Success (7-Minute Poem for NaPoWriMo)



There's no success like shadows,
like the sun losing the day to moon,
like certain holes in a sandy shore,
like rivulets of green algae banking
on a sunny beach, like basking marmots
above the treeline, like pregnancy.

We who fall silent at the ebb
of night, we who are not afraid
to be whole, we who strive to fill
an afternoon with teardrops, with joy,
with slender needles of medicinal sap,
with cure and sow, with litanies,

We make success in the way we move,
the way we feel about rain, about mud
before it turns to brick. We know sadness
in the fertile soil, in the cull and curry.
We are successful ever after. We are
sucking the cesspools dry, a curing peace.



Lorna Dee Cervantes
4/4/11