Meditation #18

In the mythology of certain tribes
there is a tradition of using black
to represent purity
and white to signal
corruption.

When I was a child
I had a black blanket
that I carried everywhere
and sucked upon until it turned
gray.  I was my own tribe,

dwelling somewhere between
the limits.  I smelled like pine tar
and blueberry bark all summer
and tripped over my own feet
all winter, waiting for summer

until I was thirteen and I lost a ball
by the railroad track.
A man took it with a pair of scissors,
so I started trying to play catch without it —
crouching all the time in anticipation.

It’s hard to catch anything
when you’re clinging to something else.
Was that manhood out there?
I let the friendship of that ratty cloth go
and focused as hard as I could,

and so my hands
have remained cupped
to this day,  hard molded
to the need to succeed
and be perfect —

but how I wish I still had that
ambiguous blanket,
something to wring out
and cradle as it dried,

its divergent natures cooling
on the ground, its texture
a comfort.  Black, for purity;
white, for poison;
and I am the tribe of gray.