Earth

Two people cannot see the same way but they can teach

One another their ways. One gives up body and soul

To follow the flow of the historical woman until

He can close his eyes and glide through mountains effortlessly.

He gives up earth and he gives up air, he gives up being touched

But he forgets to give up desiring to be touched. Then

One day the sun is hot or the moon is full, he desires

Uncontrollably to be touched and he flies smack

Into the mountain and never comes out the other side.

You live to prepare yourself to die. You leave behind

A wreck of strewn projects or a few icy pearls.

Incredibly you leave your voice behind saying

Over and over again the same words. You leave

Memories of yourself behind as pictures in the heads

Of people who wish you weren't dead or hadn't been alive.

They wash the pictorial body, shave it, comb your hair

The way they liked it best, cut a little here, add a little there,

Then easily, easily and kindly forget you.

Two hundred years later the wall crumbled and burned.

The ashes were spread logically across the plain,

A mathematical formula could describe the distribution.

The ashes were like seeds and from them

A thousand higher walls were made. It was lovely

To see those walls breathing imperceptibly

Shifting their glances so slowly as to go unnoticed

Behaving as if they were dead.

If I breathe, they breathe. If they are ash, so am I.

Having tried to separate myself and failed

I donate my body to science. The wall needs me

To breathe and hear. It gets my ears and lungs.

Trees need me to cast their night spells.

Are they asleep or are they dancing

A primitive fertility dance in the forest?

I choose trees because they can watch everything

From the distance of longevity.

To them I donate my soul.

Everything should be made of earth.

Earthen walls, earthen homes, earthen bodies, earthen sex.

Nothing should be made of air. Earth should inhale

And exhale air. Air should whip and caress earth.

Air should dry it out and crumble it. Earth.

Water should wet it and dissolve it. Earth.

What is the function of fire? Fire makes earth permanent

And then fire makes earth into air. Water

Makes earth into mud. Mud makes earth into homes.

Homes make earth into walls. Walls make the earth breathe.

Breathing makes the earth crumble. Crumbling

Makes the earth seed.