& the persistence of matter
where i am what i carry
limestone in the architecture
of my teeth, old seas
gone hard inside me
the quake of shifting earth
the silent reach of filaments
dendrites threading through the soil
of this place
where i carry
forgotten songs to long-gone
stars
mud ripened by the bodies
i have absorbed into me
by teeth
caught in my right hand, the sick
gathered between my elbows and
my heart, the faces i have held between
these, my grandmother’s hands
and branch
Starlight scatters wound flint paths of old songs to remember scales in rain.
Starry notes.
Consider the ancient star’s strange courage and this large man, reading. Watch this spirit storm the walls, the transparent body trying to translate its former substance.
Most poets are too late and too soon, with too much of the world to rush forward, pulling back, having nothing but this cry for the occasion, a flash of voice calling keep you to what goes and come to what will not.
***
Opening lines nod to this verse from William Carlos Williams: “It’s a strange courage/ you give me ancient star:/ Shine alone in the sunrise/ toward which you lend no part!” (“El Hombre,” 1917).
