Clattering

I was a pebble skipped across
the surface of life
Newborn fearlessly colliding
into sharp edges above the water
a friend once said:
we are rocks on a riverbed
My reply:
poems don’t need to rhyme
Or to try
The meaning in art is what picks you up
Or what let’s you down
We are here to soften every hard edge
Current of circumstance unplanned
I was a pinball playing the Mississippi
Until I was soft enough to fall
To see life above me, moving,
Regardless of me
To feel hardness fall down on me
And soften us both in the meeting.