Above Ground

by Clint Smith

The river that gives us water to drink is the same one that might wash us away.

But some days, I worry that we are welcoming you into the flames of a world that is burning. Some days, I am afraid that I am more kindling than water.

Sometimes the moral arc of the universe does not bend in a direction that comforts us.

but you are part of me in ways I am still discovering, and when you are hurt, I feel your distress spread through every cell in me. I experience your wounds as if they were my own.

I tremble at what I already know, that my children will not know this city beyond the holidays and funerals that bring them here. That I no longer know the city I have always worn like a tattoo. I still remember the city as something it was kept from becoming. I am still looking for a language not covered in mud.

I remain astonished by how cicadas live for seventeen years underground and then die within weeks of coming up to meet the world.

You can still mourn the damage done by a storm even if you stood on the shore and saw it coming.

I fear everything I cannot control and know that I control nothing. I am standing in a thunderstorm attempting to shield you from every jagged slice of yellow sky. I am trying to inhale all the smoke from this burning world while asking you to hold your breath.

We can spend lifetimes looking at history to find the most extraordinary things, when sometimes they are right in front of us.

Maybe treasure is anything that reminds you what a miracle it is to be alive.

When I look at you, it’s like I am seeing everything that came before, all the people I love who once lived but who are no longer living, all of the history that has brought you here to me.

My life is made possible by trillions of tiny mysteries. I exist because of so many things I’ll never see.