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.