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found poem 2

from a may 2001 national geographic story about jaguars on mexico’s yucatan peninsula:

‘i would like to be the jaguar of your mountains
and take you to my dark cave
open your chest there
and see if you have a heart’

and a song called ‘shelter’ by ray lamontagne:

‘left you heartbroken, but not until those very words were spoken

Has anybody ever made such a fool out of you’

so, this is the found poem in response to a visit from my parents and all that surrounded it (a reminder that for all my lessons sometimes i just can’t believe). i heard the song at dinner, and found the magazine in my hallway in a pile about to be recycled:

you must be the jaguar
coming here so many years, to this dark place
where you open me up
gazing, you ask me to say it again
yes, yes i’m still a fool

or my mountains
you have been standing by for years
i see your hot tears
but even lava could not hurt me
i remain, amazingly, still not perfect

or perhaps my cave
that black place i go to because i cannot lie
where when i speak of love
i mean it unconditionally
you should see the night from here

but i’d have sworn you were my heart
i’ve watched that foolish rhythm smiling
don’t ask me to dance
i still wonder if you are real at all
or a myth to make me less a danger to myself

you, the shelter no one knows i’ve been running to
you, the song i keep singing to myself
this is the world i made
with the gifts you gave me
this is the world i always wanted