Northern_Lights_2016

22 Ode ( Regarding Homeostasis ) Erin Noehre Here’s to the nights that make going home feel like a death sentence. Nights when sleep feels utterly inferior because it would end the seconds I watch your eyelashes Blink, Blink, Blink. Nights when the sun falls fast, And the streets wrap themselves in cloaks of a violent indigo. Everyone you know, and the cosmos, drenched in drunken swagger. When drinking coffee at 3 a.m. seems reasonable, because it’s one more reason to look you in the eyes. To thrusting beyond circadian rhythms because there’s books to read, Christs to see, And seas to swim. I am tandem with the world as I never hoped to reclaim. When I hear creation’s united heartbeat and all it sounds like is your name. I want to breathe and consume as I never have, For there are righteous fruits that grow and hang swollen with pride. Quest with me around this unseasoned ground. I thirst to bear witness as stars bloom, and lovers lay nestled neath juniper trees. I want to taste the lavender that haunts your veins. I want to number the ways I can kiss your scars and praise your pains. I want to see what it is that makes mankind a force: A force to be reckoned with a force to be feared. Let us perch in revelry on park benches and old cafes, Where so-called social graces wane into nicotine haze. Conversations concerning the seemingly mundane aspects of life; When you brush your teeth do your gums bleed? Somehow lead to the most extraordinary reflections; I was 17 when I realized I was not invincible. Suddenly gospel is learning your yes’s and no’s, Scripture is tattooed on your tongue, And I am Lazarus brought back by your gentle hum. Make me water. Feed me earth. Some will swear this dirt is spoiled and spent, But I will kick up the dust and call it by its true name; Holy, Renewed, Baptized absent shame, Mother of all fantastic and terrifying invention. And the earth’s crust will recognize me as hosanna in flesh, As I lay myself beneath her russet colored chest. She knows, as I know, these days are only left for the blessed. Yet somehow, Breath and blood endure.