Message in the Clay

Our family was steel

Tough and successful

Forging our will

On the earth here below

Progress and pragmatism

It all made sense

Pushing upward and forward

With a long way to go

Self sufficient, continuing to

Pull ourselves up

By our bootstraps

No time to stop

For the halt or the lame

The show must go on

Get up and on with it

Until one day a serious

Announcement came

We interrupt this life of yours

To present you with some Reality

It may not be appropriate for adults

But children will understand

There may be scenes of prolonged nudity

Graphic inability to communicate

Complete shattering of theology and philosophy

But come and take the hand

Of the message in the clay.

Put her in a home they said

Forget about her

Consider her dead

And don’t think again about it

But we thought about her every day

And yet we never thought about it

As one would never think about their own

Hand or foot or heart made out of clay

And so began the journey

Into de-gress, de-volution,

Dis-appropriation,

Dis-socialized dis-array

At least that’s how the uninitiated

Characterized the detour

The family’s path

Down the road less traveled,

With the message in the clay

The blood is red

But silly sounds

And words of nonsense

Come and break

Our logic and our towers down

And it was good

For us to stop

And laugh and love and play

And enjoy the special place we held

In the universe with perfection filled

And watch the hand tear the curtain of

Our false dignity away

As we sat and watched TV

Played slapjack, old maid, jamonickee,

And stopped for all eternity

For the message in the clay.

-jenn long