Lectic

Before you shake the dust, you have to let
it touch your beautiful feet. You have to salt
the mud with your trickling sweat. You have to dust
the earth with flecks of skin awhirl with wind,
spinning through the narrow shafts of light.
Listening for the pathway to their ears,
you have to walk a mile inside their words,
blisters on your feet, until the turn.

You have to wait for the turn. You have to trust
that maybe they've been listening as well,
slogging with you through this common mud
to earn the right to show you something strange.
Hands clasped together, gasp at the good news,
the clear pure streams, the firm and solid ground.