SWIM & FLY UNDERGROUND

by Mark Hanawalt

Inspired by the Conservatory Garden

Listening to music in the park,
Under the park to be precise,
Elevates my heart in negative weight;
Finessing strings & pounding bass
Take me away – under the ground
Where I am below the weights of fear & chaos.
Taking flight where safety lifts a confident spirit.

Roots of heavenly trees too beautiful for words
Grow there, striving for Heaven downward;
I offer my soul to them willingly,
For nourishment for the cosmic stretch.
Tunnels are nourishment for souls
That see too much pain, too much world.
The world is too much with us; with me.

Return my soul to beginner’s innocence
For just a moment, then I must beg
To find my way back from eternity
To go on in the world above;
A world trapped in frantic busy-ness.
I willingly beg, I willingly plead
For such a chance as this to know forbidden beauty.

Blades of grass join worlds above
And worlds below; under sky, under earth.
I swim through air in the Tunnels
Like a sea of truth & love.
Take me again into the Earth
The next time I visit you, oh Heaven.
Who’d have thought that Heaven was beneath us?

4/7/19