Kudzu

Kudzu

Jeannie Whitlock

Seed is to jungle
As word is to prayer
Crackling up through the
Concrete, miles deep, of

American self-reliance,
Small-screen addiction,
Secret despair,
The ache for sleep,

Regardless, bashing up
To where

Prophets watch as the wind is born,
Leviathan bows at last, and the children ride him;
Scars become scabs become smooth brown flesh,
Peat-blackened skulls grow skin and hair, breathe,
And laugh to find themselves human again, whole;
Waste heaps yield rich dark loam and sprout green,
Seagulls cease to bicker and steal, and wing instead over undrowning waves;
Many hands wrench bloody bricks from the walls, wash them, and build a home,
Roots mold the once-inexorable roads of Cain’s old city into rolling hills,
Crashing through asphalt, toppling Babeled towers until
Only the boscage of us stands, stirring and rustling and whirring and whistling
One praise as

Eyelash brushes Cheek and is raised.

---

Jeannie Whitlock
Poet & Writer

Jeannie has been published in Christianity Today, Roads & Kingdoms, Story Warren, and more. She is writing a book about embodied delight. Find her at jeanniewhitlock.com or on Titter @jeanniewhitlock

Photography by Ishan