I was born to a family wrapped inside the wallpaper of two worlds, drumming the other's disappearance. My voice grew into an impulse of blood wars red and white.
Running between winter and spring I awoke to a nightmare of spit and bile. My grandfather said I must earn my tracks in the night. The earth surged and oozed
Hail native language, that by sinews weak Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak, And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips, Half unpronounc'd, slide through my infant lips, Driving dumb Silence from the portal door, Where he had mutely sate two years before: Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask, That now I use thee in my latter task: Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee, I know my tongue but little grace can do thee: Thou needst not be ambitious to be first, Believe me I have thither pack'd the worst: And, if it happen as I did forecast, The daintest dishes shall be serv'd up last. I pray thee then deny me not thy aid
At night, alone, the animals came and shone. The darkness whirled but silent shone the animals: The lion the man the calf the eagle saying Sanctus which was and is and is to come.
The sleeper watched the people at the waterless wilderness’ edge; The wilderness was made of granite, of thorn, of death, It was the goat which lightened the people praying. The goat went out with sin on its sunken head.
Water: no matter how much, there is still not enough. Cunning life keeps asking for more and then a drop more. Our ankles are weighted with lead, we delve under the wave. We bend to our spades, we survive the force of the gusher.
Our bodies fountain with sweat in the deeps of the sea, Our forehead aches and holds like a sunken prow. We are out of breath, divining the heart of the geyser, Constellations are bobbing like corks above on the swell.
To My Noble Friend, Mr. Charles Cotton O thou that swing’st upon the waving hair Of some well-fillèd oaten beard, Drunk every night with a delicious tear Dropped thee from heaven, where now th’ art reared;
These of living emanate a formidable light, Which is equal to death, and when used Gives increase eternally. What fortifies in separate thought Is not drawn by wind or by man defiled. So whispers the parable of doubleness. As it is necessary not to submit To power which weakens the hidden forms;
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.
How like the sky she bends above her child, One with the great horizon of her pain! No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild, No weeping cloud, no momentary rain, Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief, That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb. She stoops in pity above the labouring earth, Knowing how fond, how brief
Green miles of leafy peace are spread Over these ranks, unseen and serried; Screening the trenches with their dead And living men already buried. The rains beat down, the torrents flow Into each cold and huddling cave; And over them the beet-fields grow, A fortress gentle as a grave.
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