Higher Places

 'He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.' - The Psalmist 

I'm not of a heavenly height as Common raps in The Light 

And though, my vertebrae have been decompressed, a musical instrument 

My asana practice has affirmed the ground with both feet and palms

Standing in the bustling highveld, I am not tall place enough  

So I climbed the double helix of a Jacobean ladder to higher places

Where the sequencing became stark and exposed for what it is

Jesus, with body barely covered, kept a promise on a high place

Most of the promises I make to myself end in an ellipses

Could it be they get underfoot of busy highways and byways

trafficking cars and getting trampled to death by weary pedestrians

This city teems with ambitions, thick air that chokes dreams

The metamorphosis of my promises needs a different kind of air

So I hike up a mountain in Mogale and hold out my promise like Rafiki did Simba

Waiting for the quiet of the mountain to a-stone-ish and time to throw the bones

Of the skulls, Golgotha, my arms still outstretched, draining of blood

Except instead of nails through palms, a promise on high without stigmata

On these high places where alternative pasts are made manifest

Altering presents, futures, and reconciling pasts, not without pain and sweat

It is both a labour and a passion to close the circle of a promise

A cross had to be carried and suffered and a promise had to be carried and kept

These high places take it out of us, draining us of blood and conceits

Life was drained out of Jesus so that death may be drained out of us

The mountain side, lush and verdant, irrigated by the fluids of our stains

Oh, what a marvel photo-sin-thesis is, life in exchange for death

Down the mountain rolled the severed head of the reaper gathering speed, soil and sin

To the foot of the mountain where the feet of the weary pedestrians trampled on it

Excalibur can now be returned to the a-stone-ishment of the mountain

My promise, steeled, sunned, sustained, and still standing.