Maple Syrup On Sunday

Quiet lulls like soul food, soulful
Margins widen
Again
After the long lonesome loud
Period.
Sometimes you have to call it like it is
Or was
My soul was drowning in noise
Of churning, change
Learning, living, out loud
Speeding Road Runner and Wylie-like
Braking at the last minute
At  the edges of the cliffs
And not the white ones of Dover
Pastoral and pure
More like
The ragged jagged ones
Barrel rolling over the
Falls
Nearly, but bailing out right before rolling over the
Niagara white foamy frothing falls with fierce
Break-neck speed
Like the Tasmanian Devil swirling twirling
I don’t buy that Devil in the Details
Stuff, not one bit
But in the racing like
Nascar through life
Yep
He may crouching tiger
Lay there ready to pounce

But mercifully
Peace seeps in, creeps in
Like maple syrup drips out of a tapped tree
Blanketing a stack of white and fluffy
Flap jacks with sugary sweet
Jesus peace like a river
Re-attends

And life is wondriful
A hybrid blend of glorious wonderful
Again

When Oliver wrote those words about joy and crumbs
I get it, really get it
And if joy were a condiment
It should be maple syrup on Sunday
Poured out slow and steady
So thick and sticky
You couldn’t wash it off if you tried
It wants to linger in the air
On fingers
Counters
Somehow leaving traces of itself everywhere
Creating stagnant pools
In cracks and crevices
Of joy
Sweet like maple syrup on a slow motion morning
Quiet lulls like soul food, soulful
Margins widen
Again

And poetry
Is born again.