"(In this skin I was happiest of all)"

Beachcombing in Autumn

a love song

Picking among some shards which seem like me
I find among them things I recognize
Clutching at broken bits tentatively
Pieces of hand in hand I realize
What these things must be (as the rain begins)

These are the dried husks of old snake-shed skins
Which I wore at varying lengths of snake
And then there came those times of turning when
I wriggled from my skin made a clean break
To leave here reupholstered once again

And from this process my detritus lies
Here where it fell to tell the truth today
Of growth and change and how things rearrange
Falling leaves on the way to November

I think this is why we find snakes so strange
Because they are strangely familiar to
Evolving humans fitted out with hands
To clutch at broken bits of me and you
Quietly insisting we remember

Whatever a snake knows it understands
Evolving humans fitted out with feet
Now wet from the rain to wake with the pain
Of having come a long way in old skin

It could be time to shed my skin again
Not to replace it but to turn it in
You may come along later and find this
Most recent skin whose shards you might recall
The lips of the face still curled by your kiss

(In this skin I was happiest of all)

+Steven Curtis Lance



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