What a Wonderful Thing

I am so lazy


when morning comes


all I want to do is roll back into myself.


I only want to wake up


early enough to drink coffee


and listen to the records that spin


the sun from the sky


and listen to the world happen


as it is happening.


Outside my window,


there is a church bell


fat in brass and song and holy


sometimes I want to swallow it


For once I want to touch it


something beautiful without breaking it.


I am so lazy!


All I want to do is hold beautiful things--


tambourines


flowers


fresh rain


silk sorry


honesty covered in honey


a watermelon slice


a plate full of grandmother's cooking


a hot tortilla


a diamond smile


a pretty girl's hand

good intentions


All I want to do is bend my hand into a chest


where sacred things are kept


where I can write poems in blood


in gold


in love and love and love


the person you love is 72% water


All I want to do is find an ocean worthy of drowning in


All I want to do is laugh at myself for wanting so many things


Want


is the body's way of remembering what it does not have


So I may not have much


but I can open my mouth


and any space becomes a stage


and I can watch nothing but honesty come out.


Gosh, what a wonderful thing!


To be lazy in a world that will always be lazy with you.


To love in a world whose heart is an ocean


holding us up


waiting for you


to love it back.

------

Zachary Caballero is a musician and his instrument is words.

He joins several other musicians of his kind with the Austin Poetry Slam group, who collectively transform poetry from the most dreaded part of a student's English curriculum to the utmost emotional and eloquent form of expression.

Willa invited the slam poetry group to perform at Kappa during chapter for our monthly program night. Everyone was equally enthralled, and I was particularly moved by the piece above, which he wrote a mere forty-five minutes beforehand.

For Zach, stringing words together is a hobby and a skill he has evidently mastered. He calls it cathartic. If I was asked to describe blogging in a single word, I'd call it that--cathartic. During our email exchange, I expressed my appreciation for his gift and my empathy for how passions like his and mine benefit oneself just as much as one's respective audience, and that's the beauty of it.

He said it perfectly:

"I believe everyone can bring joy to the world, because we are inherent with goodness, inherent in our ability to bring light in all that we do. I'm just lucky enough to have found the one thing that keeps me humble and balanced and happy." 

Thanks to BOD, I have too.