Fifth Step Zanzusie With a Joy, Joy!
Plodding, trodding, onward I went,
Through a life of self-targeted perfidy.
Onward, outward, straight up and bent,
Toward Second Half-Century City.
Finally lost, with nothing but need,
Flailing, wailing, and sick,
I sat myself down, drank the last of my mead,
And saw a gecko, sunning on a stick.
Its eyes were opals, skin of amethysts,
Garnets and emeralds, square and round.
When it spoke, the air danced in fits,
And out came a euphonious, female sound.
“I’ve been waiting; at last, you finally came!
Though you’re more worn than you should be.”
Shocked though I was, I asked for her name,
And she laughed singing out, “I’M ZANZUSIE!”
You’re a female, I cried, I didn’t understand,
And feeling just shy of frenetic!
“Of course!” she replied, “I need no man for my plan.
I’m a gecko. I’m parthenogenetic!”
“I am mother, sister, daughter and aunt.
I am every tear that you have ever shed.
I am truth, repose, raving and rant,
And I know the loneliness that you have fled.”
“Oh, I am so glad to meet you,” said I, “I’m not well prepared.
There is little but dust in my pack.
Up at yonder gate, when they see how I’ve fared,
I’m afraid that they’ll turn me back!”
“Well let’s have an accounting,” said she, “of just who you are,
Where you’ve been, what you think, what you’ve done.
Tell me all, sweet spirit, banal and bizarre.
Oh quit sniveling, come on, it’ll be fun!
So I told every tale, every deed, every woe,
I had wrought, from the sane to the sick.
I purged out my life from a place far below,
To a gecko, sunning on a stick.
At the last, I was spent, gasping for air,
Not really sure I was through.
She reached out Loves touch and pushed back my hair,
Saying, “I have two things that belong to you.”
She opened her pack and took out pure light.
“Here is your Love, which you left behind.
You had to let go, during your plight,
To keep from losing your mind.”
Then she reached in and took out a song
That exalted every spirit and being.
“This is Forgiveness, its healing is strong,
But you dropped it while you were fleeing.”
“It is Forgiveness that now will make you complete
As you impart it to those who cause pain.
Give it to all, the mean and the sweet,
Absolve them all, again and again.”
Then she bade me go on toward the gate of my time,
And I knew that my life had at last begun.
And I owe it to her, so smug, so sublime.
Zanzusie, on a stick, in the sun.
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