Sand Cycle--Black Shine Rising

(a turning/for Cassandra)

i do not desire to be ordinary nor special

what i seek is the irreducible simplicity of relevance

i am what warm sun is to planted seeds

cloistered in dark earth

do not mistake me for conventional ground

for i am light

i might never reproduce but my transformation

is its own birth

movement is the essential property of my luminosity

i can no more be confined than can a sunbeam be boxed

though despair sometimes assails me, like every good african

i rise from conformity's floor singing, dancing even when

my face be awash with pain tears my shining lucidity remains

free, thank god, of self-pity's enchanting tyranny

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