Astride the Earth

Even in casual conversation,
her hands are drawn upward
unconscious

Into the shapes of the
penitent, into the gestures
of prayer

And her eyes, though she's
young enough, have that
serenity

That absence of tenseness
that so often marks those
on the downslope

And even her smile is somehow
slow, ineffably soft in that
dimness of her room

Everyone she talks to feels
just for that moment, that
he's special, chosen

As if, as she regards you
you become alone and unique
on the earth

Plucked up from the rank and
file, the gray phalanx of
trudging similarity

Given, just for a moment, a
ray of something pure and solid
out of the great ephemera

And she, like goddesses are,
is unaware of it all, in her
bliss the illusion

The mirage of normality, such
that, from afar, even those
looking wouldn't see

And her days come and go, just
as ours do, and she has her
small successes

And even her setbacks are minor
miracles, for they allow all
the smaller creatures,

We who scuttle about in the
dust at her feet, a moment
in her presence

A moment when we can act as
savior to one who stands, colossal
astride the earth

Patrick M. Tracy
11/6/09