Vessel

I thought I had to be hollow,
a space for all this vast beauty,
as I made of myself a healer
for all who would find rest.

I did not know my own belly rumbled.
I did not know my steps were kennings
nor my heartbeats a calling.
I did not know that the only choice not given us
is the choice not to be a person.

We are none of us afforded the safety
of being an object,
no matter how we may be objectified.
Perhaps, I did not want to know,
vacuity my refuge and my rebuke.

But this world, too, hungers
to behold itself its self in our beholding.
This world, too, yearns to be consumed
and consuming, as we all must.

Refusing that intimate feast,
makes of all that we might be
only a terrified appetite
devouring our fertile decay,
our mutual arising.

May I forget, then,
everything I thought I knew.

May I listen for the ways we belong
in the taste of truth on my lips,
in the mud of our becoming. 

May I leave nothing to that ungentle silencing
that we all may know the tender tension
of burgeoning again into being
through each opening ear,
each answering eye.