Thursday, August 17, 2006

Earthed


The sun-glazed baobabs; splashed with gold
Are too formal and too poised for this wild ground.
Their shapes; sculpted cries – held in time forever –
Lend the wind a mournful sound.
A grief impossibly familiar and impossibly old;
The death of Adam remembered and foretold.

Humble and uncomprehending,
Embrace a cause or take a stand
And add your footnote to
What you cannot fully understand.

Not everything is grist for understanding.
What, after all, were you born remembering?
What will you dream of, who are dying
Beneath the same blue emptiness that solves
The riddle of your life?

The sun falls in a wordless arc.
Beasts loll in the noontime sun – glad to be alive,
And natives, with no use for your kindness or curiosity
Thrive.

Above the stupefying earth,
Birds you can name are flying.
The same impassive sky revolves
Beyond this ring of horizon…

Here, rising and ebbing with the wind ceaselessly
The same unchanging cry
Is made solid in the rigid dignity of the tree.