The Literary Review

Before morning,

before the desire for morning,

hidden things surface.

The reservoir reaches its level

with subtle degrees,

sinking as it seeps

between webbed roots of sunken towns.

Unseen feet rush through high grass

in a fatal chase.

The summer fields,

beginnings, loom and beckon.

Poetry bleeds slowly

from the frontier of the unspoken,

a hunted wealth

at the border of my muteness.

It paces here through wet fields

with the inarticulate grace of young deer.

It steals from old forests,

cicada voided, inchoate.

Floating from our mouths,

flecked, words hang,

tense as trespassers

aiming their Winchesters.

There is power in the abundant open,

a thought-root, lashing up,

a ground lightning

that starts our hands and feet.

It comes to surface,

spontaneous as the Appalachian wildflower,

the wild orchid,

rootless trace under expanses of loam,

a lily of the red depths.

I imagine a language,

a street talk for a liberated America

babbling up,

in pursuit of the named known,

the unnamed, of nameless want.

I listen to night wind songs.

After sundown on my porch

and in the habitation of our dreams

in stone and rented rooms,

the red lily stem

of our tongues

side and ravel

in sudden confluence.

Syllabic and sharp,

thrust in unison,

summoned in full throat,

in shrill and ragged choir

songs of freedom

sung from the origin of our thirst.