Jump-Start Poem by Troy Cochran

I knew a moment, once,
that was tadpole to a frog; a spit of pond
that seemed to be an ocean to its spawn.

I knew a mirror, once,
that came and stood in front of me
as God; a moment of reflection,
then was gone.

Thus my Ever-Presence haunts
me where I stand; charms
the vault where I entomb myself
as a shadow-man.

Dead, I am.

Yet, seeded with a Whim of such high velocity,
a ghost in my casket;
too fast even to be strung out in a long
night's training of whistle
or whisper. In but a moment All
was said. Nothing was done.

The porcelain vessel of the world's bowl of sound that carries
the songs of the world, the dreams of dreamers,
the infinite noise ~ in less than a moment
drowned.

The burst of the seed in the ground shattered
a passing cloud, and no one noticed.
How can that be?

The infinite speed
of Spirit breaking the sound barrier;
a vibrancy that moves the seed
to its most momentous moment ~ a need
for thunderous applause, a clattering proliferation of leaves,
fruits, tastes for the buds, and the musk
of an occult fragrance.

I heard nothing from the world above.
It shrugged.

I have come to believe a strange thing.
That the incarnation of God in the belly of the Earth
is the upstart of God from shrub and dirt; from you and me.

How can it be?
That God, who never went to sleep,
startles even the seed of man into an inexplicable wakefulness
that jumps from sleep! and in a lifetime of such intermittent slumber grows

ten-thousand tendrils of belief
that obscures the Infinite?