I Hunger Too

Only a bird
unhurried in an oceanic space
is on its way

Shapes and shifts of sound
a scream of winds, a ssh of waters
pummel the air, dance crazy

and time disfigures
a wing of light
beating on on

I tree
that bud up break out burst on air

I stone, fused
in a laboratory of billioning worlds
a fragment, fetched up here

I man
walking at evening underneath dark clouds
a merest moment, touched by grace, by chaos

a deadliest speck and love itself, I Adam

and Nature’s brat, a mouth in a great brood,

I hunger too.

*

In a match-flare
a history of one

A bent figure
arranging sticks

Alphabet, genome,
a superhighway

merely to know
itself

Fire I
roar blind at every breath

and glimpse
within, without
a leap of colour

across a waste
of dead star-matter
a host of eyes

seeing far, seeing near

next to nothing

each sight a circle
dimmed by its own light

damned in its own night.

*

Rain I
squeak to the root

Sun I
demand a come-back
a raucous shout, the early news
of springing tips

Grass I
chatter as people do
in broad amusement
down the first fields

We are come
carrying a great fortune
on our shoulders

it buys nothing
it is not for exchange

a double line
to smile with
a double line
to gnash
in a feeding frenzy

*

I the sea

a restless mind of inconceivable forms

deep-freshening in dirt, decay, at odds, depth-charged

here to lie easy
there to boil, a cold horror
here and there
to mirror light

what chasm, what racketing space-works, what on Earth

what plant of an unutterable horsepower

what god is it, what savage of sweet changes

what instrument of time
what poet’s breath

and I sky

in muted tones of soft crystal
able to pen a thought
in the lightness of light, for beauty,

I hunger too.

*

Only a bird
eyebrow-winged, and guided by its kin,
is on its way

Brothers and sisters
in space, befriend it,
enrich its going

into the heart
of emptiness,
beating on on