Fathom Mag
Poem

Human

A poem

Published on:
July 17, 2017
Read time:
1 min.
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We are all of us shaker cups, you and I,
Into whom the whole of life is poured.
We give the world meaning by shaking it inside ourselves,
It has no meaning on its own,
But lives raw, unsmelted.

Yet tumbled in the cavity of the human frame,
Extruded through the nostrils like the lava blood of earth,
Flowering from the eyes like the toads on storm’s wax,
Dancing from the fingers like the song of thrumming crickets—

This

This is life given meaning.
This is the highest form of humaning.
To be the translation of reality given birth in pallor,
Yet set fire in passion and in pain.
And yet
In that tumble, in the ruckus of human bowels,
The divine lives and breathes and moves.

And we feel it like a trout swallowed raw and wriggling in our bellies.
There the hand that bid the world to be stirs the slurry of our souls
(Upon the world inflicted)
And a spark creates.
We are all shaker cups, you and I, in the heart of which the world is  truly born.
We are vessels of divine creation.
We are the language of the world.

Jed Ostoich
Jed Ostoich is a writer, editor, and the Dwight of his office. He has his BA from Moody Bible Institute in Hebrew, and his ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary in OT Biblical Theology. When he’s not marking up other people’s words, he’s reading up on Magic the Gathering or down the rabbit hole of YouTube. Jed lives with his wife and four kids in Grand Rapids. You can find him on Twitter @TheJeditor.

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