Monday, June 20, 2005

The Urge to Make This World

You can’t begin to get it right but still you begin
Again each day to make the world anew. In the dim
Light of dawn to draw the outlines of your familiar things:
The bed, the dresser drawers, the family photographs,
The breath and body of your wife, your right arm.

Almost effortlessly, bright new birds are gathered
Into the arms of the trees you make to ring your garden,
Your walled delight. Color and scent ripple outward
Into a milky sky, staining the whiteness with life.

A new world.

Leave the shipwreck of your bed and the warmth of it
For the cold of the blue kitchen. Light a fire
Under the kettle of water for your tea and trail the dregs
Of your dreams behind you. What falls to the floor

Becomes the warp and weft of this thing you carelessly
Call into being with your breathing, your thoughtless
Thoughts.

Open a drawer, and you’ve created bread.
From your fingertips spill oranges, pomegranates,
Figs, the sweet flesh pitted with seed. Each stone
Cock hungry for the earth you’ve made.

This life you build with each forgotten gesture loves you,
Calls you master, opens its fragrant arms to you, gives
Its flesh to your desire, wants only to do what’s impossible:

Sate your hunger for it.

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