The Raspberry Kid

The Raspberry Kid

Paul J. Pastor

When you were a child
you could take your mind
and throw it into all sorts
of things. One example:
you could expand until
you were the sun, (that star
that sings the plasma operetta),
then focus yourself to a shaft
of particles, whose every move
remembered the first dance,
and fall to earth

like the longest arrow,
flash past satellites, stratospheric lumination,
bounce the crystals of a cloud (which held vast tons
of water-weight, yet somehow sailed the air),
then take your sunset summer light, hot
with the vacuum dryness that ripens galaxies,
and without effort, without pain, stream back
eastward, compact yourself, romp the endless
cathedral of a raspberry, parade sacredly
the narthex of her red druples.

Enter,
climb the altar, drink the holy cup,
preach a homily of all good things,
preach how, to know this hidden kingdom,
of plasma, marrow, rum, all below
must now turn lightward, heatward,
like twice-born little children.

---

Paul J. Pastor
Poet & Editor

Paul is a poet, author, and editor (with Penguin Random House). His debut poetry collection, Bower Lodge, is slated for a December 2021 release from Fernwood Press, joining his nonfiction works on spirituality, The Face of the Deep and The Listening Day. His poetry has appeared in various outlets and has been anthologized by New York Quarterly.

Photography by Daniele Colucci