Life Is a Seamless Garment

Serengeti National Park in Tanzania (Public Domain photo, courtesy of  pixabay)

Life is a Seamless Garment

Life is a seamless garment... 

   To be worn by the Queen of Heaven

   when she comes to her oceanic court

   under a bright crescent moon.

   That sways across the Serengeti Plain

   gathering members for a wild nighttime orchestra.

   That covers an old man in his feverish delirium

   as he is cared for by other men's children.

Life is a seamless garment...

   Worn by a joker, tailored by a thief

   who can turn the world upside down and inside out

   until things level out again.

   Run up a rusty flagpole

   by myopic adolescents in heady celebration.

Life is a seamless garment...

   To be worn by the Cosmic Christ

   when the galactic wheel turns around.

   Stitched with a genetic code

   that was born in a primordial sea.

My grandmother called it a patchwork quilt,

      put together by a motley crew.

   Diverse and beautiful in its own way,

      tiresome but adequate in the end,

But I know life as a seamless garment

   Whose surface patterns may change

   In the hands of shamans and poets,

      alchemists and chefs,

   But whose essence is of one piece.

Life is a seamless garment...

   That is constantly being gambled for

   By soldiers as they do the emperor's bidding.

   Unfolding under starry nights

      and blown by desert winds,

   Whose story cannot be told

      in less than three generations.

   It has been borrowed, bartered,

      stolen and discarded, 

   But never lost.

Life is a seamless garment...

   That covers a banquet table

      where even the outcasts are invited,

   For it was a joker and a thief who cast them out

      in the first place.

   That wraps around a mother and her infant child

      as they steal a few moments of sleep in the afternoon,

   Their breathing in synchrony

      with ocean waves and cricket wings.

Life is a seamless garment...

   To be enjoyed by lovers in the night.

   Adorning mountain tops and river beds

      with beauty and mystery.

   Knit into the sinews of the tiger

      as she hunts along the steamy banks

   Of an Asian river valley.

Life is a seamless garment...

   With jewels about the collar,

      mud at the hem,

   Its span is higher than knowledge

      and further than remembrance.

   Woven into redwood, oak, and pine;

   Stitched to dragonfly and hawk,

      tubeworm and toad.

   It leaves its indelible imprint

      upon your skin,

   And the cells of your bone

      will always remember

   Flights above the forest

      and migrations in the sea.

Life is a seamless garment...

   That stretches from father to son

   Even when they claim they do not know each other.

   Covering concert hall and circus tent,

      tavern and cathedral,

   Bringing us together.

      hinting at something beyond.

   Woven in the mind of God,

   Stitched into the dreams of children.

Life is a seamless garment...

   That flows from city lights

      to candle light

      to dying embers of old forgotten fires.

   That provides a mantle for saint and guru

      and a cloak for the one whose development

         has stalled.

Life is a seamless garment

   Woven in the mind of God

   Stitched into the dreams of children.

                                                                    ~ CK

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