Thursday, September 6, 2018

Hunger

Hunger

It is the human condition to open eyes and close the mouth
when bare feet in the gravel
draw a line in the sand around solitude—
the percussion of someone come with ellipses and exclamation
to add punctuation to the space-less lines of thought.

An enemy arrives to tease
his brother and they reminisce:
They are merely
remembering the day they both realized
teeth grow to love biting wind,
eyes feast on feathered wings—while
imagination chews leaves that fell too soon from the olive tree,
patient with the figs turned up and still green,
until they are seasoned
by the falling stars.

The heart meat lifted out of the brine of tears,
warmed then cooling,
can be left to rest.
And the soul—
amid steam rising like a smoke offering—
is tender to the ticks of the clock hands and stands
soft between tines of forgiveness.

The crows shaken down like sumac, lightly on the cinnamon sands
amuse the mouths of the desert caves:
full, filling and knowing how to carry pebbles toward cairns
the way the mind carries seeds toward salted fields.

Two men argue and agree
in the milk-light of the moon
where he has been through
all its phases and twice through the new.

The riddle of a famished soul
is solved when there is no desire
to turn stones
to make bread for the mouth
because the vessel held in place by abdomen and omen
is filled
with the wine of sunshine poured out to soak the horizon
in it’s daily lowing glow.


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