Grateful More for the Crooked and the Cracked

a poem about pushing back against perfection

One Hundred Days of Gratitude. Seventeen.

Glory be for the broken.

Give thanks for the bumps, the kinks, the bruises, crevasses and chipped china.

Amen to anything cracked enough to let the light in — shattered enough for it to shine through.

The imperfect dips and dugouts where the liquid of life pools

no natural rules for nature to follow

the perfect smooth poreless goal — inhuman and hollow.

No. It’s the places that rebel. Regions that refuse to be perfected. Nations that make war on gentrifications or at least turn away all envoys.

The real places real life enjoys

still exist.

They are not exactly hiding — though they are harder to find,

Next time look at the curve of our mountain ranges look at the lines of our time-made rivers from above look at the absolute irrationality of love.

Look at life before longitudes and latitudes

Look at earth with an adolescent attitude.

Imagine the hell of a well ordered world.

Look, the loving less minimal mindset, I more than understand but even me, with a one-color closet, can see that out where it’s wild, uniformity is more deformity than the triumph of man.

Thank god for the not yet perfect.

Look at an artist’s hands.