Underneath the Bark

Conveying voice is a most ancient function,
Sounds lie awake in our mind
A ticking tock of immanent aspect
Of our Gods; clocked through buried
Memory and experience, heard and filtered
Through the inevitable infection of living,
We breathe in the dust as well as the air,
The remnants of skin, of bacteria, of the yeast
That rises in chest and lays down to die
In the lungs of this body,

                  and when I suffocate,

I call to the sounds to warm up my calm
And voice my warmth, to clear the air,
And from one sense I reach for another,
From unspoken sound to unworded touch,
Through which some divinity might speak
Of another day, where sounds are no longer
Disembodied but have the physical shape
Of what we need to pray - for you it might be
Another's skin; for me the simple intricacy
To touch the bark of a tree;

                  it tells me

Everything of importance speaks without word
But filled with so much sound; hear the rain
Fill her belly, from roots so deep in her,
Green hair shines into fire in the sun,
From summer to the fall of nature
She stands to guard all of matter,
From earth to air, water and flame
She sounds all as every step resounds
On the bridge it walks; she tames
As only the true God can;

                  not by decree

Or by man; by example, silent but loud,
Standing still but still walking her ground,
And when the sounds lie awake in my mind
I reach for her bark, to stretch out thoughts
In a body curled and lying by the curtain
Of soil that draws her roots unseen by eye
But known to heart, in the hearth of a world
That consumes all who warm by the fireplace
Of its time and ethereal tide
From its narrowest to the most wide.

From the collection: "The Story of Living Things" >>

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