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Don't count the earth - there are plates
under there that do the moving
and insanity caused by gravity
sends her spinning, my earth.
Neither is it God. God watches
with big uncountable eyes
and nudges the occasional avalanche
into view, but mostly loves it
and leaves it alone, my earth,
my over-awe. And so I clamber
up mystification and towering loss
to see if there's a better view
of the wheels, the levers, the infinitesimal
feet causing dust to rise, if there's a place
to stop and ablute my eyes
of love. What is it that moves?
*
You know, eggs
crack for good reason. Glasses
slip from hands in disaster.
Somewhere between brokenness
and being broken is the key.
A sacred removal of clothing,
shell, container, for to spill oneself
and sanctify. This is where
I do not live. And where nakedness
is mundane, like broken glass
on the kitchen floor. No baptism
saves you.
*
Where Adam was breath, Jesus
was uttered. Where Sarah broke,
Hajar blossomed and there was
water enough for everyone.
Yet I am
pigs in the mud. Who figured?
And the gaze returns to
towering loss on high, scans
for insect armies, human tectonics,
photons waiting for sightless eyes
to change the earth. Insanity
caused by gravity sends her spinning.
Love stains everything.
Kyla Pasha is a Pakistani American teaching religion and history at a university in Lahore, Pakistan. I was born and raised in Pakistan, and educated in the US. She has a BA in Creative Writing from Oberlin College. Her work, both poetry and prose, has been published on Chowk.com, the online magazine, and in the Alhamra Literary Review, a publication out of Islamabad, Pakistan. She also has a presence in the blogosphere.
