Melissa Studdard Houston, USA

Maverick

Galloping girl,

beautiful woman in bloom— you ride this life

like you would an untamed beast, your hands on the mane

as if clinging to sanity itself, your own hair blowing

its susurrus,

whispers of fire in the wind.

But sanity you suspect

is only an opinion,

and genius is the simple act of holding steady

on the back

of the bucking beast. New ideas, you know, can chafe just as fierce as brand new boots,

but you will break them in just as surely

as you will break this wild horse into a stride.

Let your toes

dangle where they will as you splash

through the mire, though the magic, through the miracle

of this half bloomed hour.

So what

if one foot grazes

the persistent weeds of delirium while the other

reaches and dips

through crystal pools of clarity? You’re still astride,

still on top, still above

and firmly planted

on the back of genius. Your chin, I can see, is lifted

in raucous prayer

to the star splashed sky, it is lifted

in that nascent, perennial

plea of adolescence:

Let me live, experience, grow!

Just know, Corin,

(let it sink into the wisdom of your bones)

that with your brilliant bareback ride

and with all subsequent incantations

lies the power and the charge to wake this dormant world and create

and recreate it continually anew.

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