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.