The Artwork: Mud
The Poem: Stuck in the Mud
Mud: that good-for-nothing mire,
intent on cementing you
where you meant to blow on by
where traction can’t be trusted
where even water seems wicked.
You feel you will die here.
They’ll call you Sludge Island
they’ll cluck their tongues
and tell the tale of you
who didn’t know better
who pushed and pulled
(all alone! all alone!)
you who didn’t know
there was any other way to be.
Until you cry out
with a voice of sodden loam,
of sediment suspended
in water.
Help arrives: a woman
half your size with twice your strength.
Others who wear mud like halos
who have nothing but their hands
which do the work of pulling you free.
This is what mud has made:
cob homes and rice harvests
calf muscles and keen eyes
a road where no one goes
unnoticed or abandoned.
Your slog through the muck is not over,
only now you can see green on the edges.
Only now your heart is soft like clay
and you let yourself sink
into its fluid pliability.