this poem was written as it became increasingly clear to me that it was going to be a popular activity to declare that "XXX" is the new emergent and that emergence itself was now boring and old hat. hearing that over and over again made me quite sad, because the emergent journey is in many ways a journey where you learn to let go of the idea that you have discovered the next new thing, and in conversation finally learn to connect to the newness which god is, and has always been, creating.
so since emergent was now so 2002, i wrote this poem, mostly to remind myself that even if it was stupid and old hat, it was still special to me, and also to remind myself that whatever i thought was bad and need emerging from, i was the one who had chosen to be buried in the first place.
a requiem for emergence
or
an ancient future narrative of being buried alive until, on the night of the full moon, in stark post foundational clarity, emergence manifests as other
it was a full moon
when he emerged from the grave.
it was a triumph.
over his enemies,
over the darkness which entombs.
while buried,
to occupy his mind,
he had prepared
an instructional series of lectures
on the discipline of oxygen management
and the techniques of opening the lid
and the trick of rising through six feet of soil
and a humorous anecdote about earthworms.
the last 9 inches, he had to dig through potatoes
without time to wonder what potatoes were doing there,
oxygen being short
the loose soil sandy soil in which the potatoes had been planted
parted like a gauze curtain.
so easy after all that clay and rock
and then there was air to breath.
he clawed himself out of the hole
he lay on his face
coughing up mud and blood.
he lay on his back, panting,
squinting at the moon, wondering
what was wrong with the sun and sky.
he kneeled, waiting for his head to clear.
he straightened and stood,
waiting for someone to request his story
naked, dirty, hands bleeding,
in the moonlight,
standing
when no request came
he stepped, and before he could stumble
a gentle hand under one arm
a blanket was set on his shoulders,
and the hands guided him
shuffling, away from the grave.
when the hands released him, he sat,
not alone, he gradually realized.
others sat, or sang, or worked
as he ate the bread
which had arrived in his hands
unnoticed, but not unwelcome.
he listened to the songs
too tired to speak, the lectures could wait
he let his eyes close
and he lay down,
in the darkness,
dreaming.
dreaming of floating down from the moon
on a moonbeam,
sent by the moon king moogaboo.
appointed ambassador the hat people
and their sentient furniture,
a job for which he had been specially trained.
only to drown peacefully on arrival,
unable to speak
in the syrupy atmosphere.
leaving the somewhat confused hat people
the trouble of explaining it to the moon king.
which casually and logically,
as it happens in dreams, became his task.
well, his and the sofa with the thick german accent
the next day,
he went back to the scene of his triumph.
in the triangular sunlight of morning
already someone was fishing the potatoes out of the crater
and then swinging tools he didn't recognize.
chopping the dirt as if to punish it for some misdeed.
turning the vines under,
were they ... planting things there?
when curious faces turned towards him
from the work,
he opened his mouth
and closed it without making any sound
more than a breath in and out.
the lectures unspoken
it seemed more interesting
to learn about the potatoes.
he waited quietly,
in the daylight,
listening.
at the next full moon,
he was well enough to drink wine.
there was more singing
no longer fragile, people slapped him on the back
and told it was good that he had
finally come out of the ground.
by the next winter, children no longer pointed at him
one long dark evening, he sang
the ballad of the fool who buried himself,
and they all sang the chorus together,
in the firelight,
laughing.
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