Pieces Of Heaven
by Avery Ray Colter
Perhaps you are angels of some unnamed kind.
I know not who else sees the glow I see
The soothing golden light from just beneath your skin?
How many people seek a concrete example of paradise?
Might it be here before me, filling up my eyes?
Perhaps these are pieces of heaven that you carry.
Their glow seems to shine into another existence.
Perhaps they serve to guard our own,
To burn the senses of the legions of evil,
And bar their hateful minions
From plunging us all into eternal misery.
To the eyes of demons these soft lights of yours may burn;
But to my eyes they are full of the sweetest music.
What wondrous substance,
Shimmering with every breath, hopping and dancing with each step,
Warming all the deep places of my mind.
How can a body that waves a welcome to all onlookers
Become a target of most wretched violence?
Who but a servant of malevolence and despair
Would endeavor to narrow all paths against thee,
Scream in thy ears, "Cut them off, burn them off",
And employ all manner of deceit -
Any ruse, any scheme, any hurtful word, any dirty trick,
To fool you into quashing your heavenly glow?
How can I sit silently and allow this tragedy?
How can I not call enemy those who seek such a terrible thing?
For I have looked upon you,
the bearers of this most tender, vibrant texture,
And felt myself purr like a cat.
My eyes have lost themselves
In the quartet of whorls
Surrounding the diamond
Behind each of your two knees.
I have cupped your essence in my hands,
As it wells up beside your backbone,
And felt all worries wash away.
I have filled my arms to overflowing,
And thrilled to the joy washing over me.
Many times have I been crushed, but never harmed,
Always healed and given new life.
By speaking out,
I disturb a contrived and twisted kind of peace.
But if I silently allow what I cannot stand to see,
I surrender to despair.
A world without such beauty
Is too cold and bitter to contemplate.
The mere thought of it repulses all my senses.
What is there to do but tell what I know,
To say what beauty inspired me to take up this verse,
To show a path out from the trap they built for you,
And extend a helping hand as you work yourself free,
To show that which should have never been covered up
In battleship greys and shapeless cloth,
But which should be the power
Behind dazzling colors and eye-catching cuts,
A celebration of romance made flesh.
We have had our successes.
We have uncovered the poisons and mutilations
Offered up as solutions by those who feign concern,
And found ways to true well-being in their stead.
How it warms my heart to see
How unfettered curves and whorls can dance,
Matched by heart-melting laughter;
How bounce in a step can be more than an empty phrase;
How the weight of what was once regarded with shame and fear
Is not destroyed, but transformed
Into a cornucopia, a feast for the senses.
Our work is not yet done,
But now I can see a day,
When more eyes forsake the cold, bare, unfeeling metal
That strikes out still from so many pages,
And come to recognize your pieces of heaven for what they truly are.
It will be a happy day when it comes,
And I will be happy to have had a hand in it.