the greater glory

--stranger—O, stranger
O, walker in a strange country
were you exile, were you alien
when your legs first straightened, against the ground?
--who carries the hunger borne of plenty
who felt the gnawing in the gut
and gnashed the empty air
and you cannot fill it with hands
nor make yourself fat on faces
--when all flesh is as your flesh

and there is not rest, in this world
where only your soul is your home
only the falling darkness of sleep
and rising under the heavy weight of day
wouldn’t you sweat
or fall to nothing
but loose folds of flesh?

but no lazing—
for the grass tells you you are not grass
and you can give the sun
nothing, who do not rise to its light
who do not grow stronger
in the brightness

O, you—unaccounted traveler
among the trees
whose leaves rustle briefly
in your passing
O, you—who were born to be weary
who were born in pieces
and sundered, pass lightly
through the great play of the light
and the world’s brutal, grinding
and lush, humming exultation
and the stone under your feet
and the wind in your hair, and another
back-lit, whose shadow touches
your knees and who makes—the sun’s
crowing tragic fall, their own
--these things, and only, are yours
so hold them, loosely
as you are passing
in the greater glory.

... (xix).

these things happen--when the world is hollow

when the soul is hollow also

and the soul is sometimes a cup for drinking

the rich liquer of existence

and sometimes an empty vessel

the wind swirls against the sides

or the air hangs heavy in the bowl.

morning

the sky coursing

through the banked leaves

the sun

eddying in the clouds

and the birds, hidden in the branches

asking, asking--

and one shoots across the sky

over the asphalt

thundering between the trees

tide (receding)

cast up against the brick
like driftwood--a little bowed, but strong
with my face in silehoutte on the glass
and the pool of sky clear above me
lapping gently at the pavement
the crests of the clouds still and soft
of the things littering the afternoon
I could pick up a shell, a piece of frosted glass
and tell you about it
--but, equally
of the fibers
knotted smoothly and waving
resting, with the others
strewn across the shores of the day

capitalism?

... and in the heat of the night

with walls growing closer

and sweat on the concrete

and slick on your brow

--I have sent you down to work

to hunch in the dim light

I have torn myself apart

and separated the component parts

and commodified my soul

so that transactions flow more smoothly

a hand-shake in the dark

a moment of touching

and the system is expanding

and skirling away from me now

--I did not think, when I was laying the structure

that I would find myself

so far from the center

leaning forward on the bench

I meant to draw every bit extra

into one thrust, forward

--so how

do I find myself, with something whirring

in the background

staring at the stars under the window

and the cool breeze

seeping under the glass?