The Origin of Our Thirst
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.