ON the Substance of Roots

On the Substance of Roots

If you look not so carefully even

It is child’s play to

Find the spot inside my heart

The spot that is soft

Like butter

And that you can cut through easily

And have your entry, too

What can I do

Silly hen

trying

To close this place

With the entry that needs no key

And the hole that has no center

When the center sings of something

And draws those to it like the pied piper

Without will

This

I do not understand

But endure

It embraces and absorbs

Without will or try of me

This center redesigned

only then

That would or might lessen

the grip

And instead would

Fruit me a photo-shopped life of certain smiles

And easy hems

Instead it is there-

Tapping at me

Like water on a drum

Drip drip goes my eggheart

Climbing inside the souls of others

On the days it shreds

Which is Most

And Wednesdays are no relief

Nor the rest of the days named

Monday or so

For time after more

Workey work it goes

Goes without a breath

Or a stop

And I feel the tired

The tired

that sleep cannot lift

That eyes cannot cover

That ears cannot block

And the chorus

Continues

Of busy in my head

And the silence laughs with a jolt

Of almost

You fall and I hear

You ache and I bleed

And sense of normal

leaves for

The thump and guns salute of alive

oblivion

Shakes and rattles

Against the windows

Goes the wind

Of me leaping to escape

Only me

But me is still there

Glued to I

Our band of misfits

Trembling and whistle

she

Prays for

The hope of exit

Hint of embrace and a sigh

Perhaps happens

I rise to the chance

And my yolkey heart

Lays stubborn still, like sap

On the trees

And it trails

over the leaves

Like a snail’s slimey wake

And it is a moment that breaks

where

The glorious space bar

Of silence happens

They-the whole of

What is

out there

In the woods-

My Savior

carry me Home for a rest in

My lovely labors of God

The green of spring

And rust of Fall

My pillow and solace alone

These Dear verdant ones

And the inside of me courses on

Like the scab that bleeds

Bleats like the lamb at slaughter

Willing my

head to roll off

so my body can start making sense

Where roots of all

have taken hold

In the stem of me

Cries all of me and it to no one:

Bring to us

The barbs of wire to allay

that which

Invades and plants

colored glass bits in our sides

pretty though it smarts

Each time it lands

taking a bit

Of your smile, too

And a touch

Of your normal

left

So it leaves you crumpled

Give us the wall

Of silence,

They bleat and scream

That would hold the enemy

Away from the gates

Through which they entreat

with hope at love

But my dear fellows

Cannot stop

More than a letter can become a number

For fellows cannot resist

Digging in the soggy soil

Of my Entrails

And what am I to do anynow

With a hole on both ends

The whole of me,

This

But yield to it

This humanness

Damned mortal life

leaving me in

Achille’s wake

Without the antidote

There is only

the breath

Of winds on my cheek

Blessed release

The gamey smell of damp and wood

For relief

As I sink into the ground on my knees

And the cool earth surrounds

As I sit in the soil

Precious to me

This moment

For I soften and sleep in my fury then

And only then

In this place

Where there is clamor until now

When we meet,

You willows and soil,

Does Peace sing softly

But I can hear!

And the green of trees towering,

Bushes clamoring

These protect me

deep in this bosom of musk

The leaves are my manna

Heaven of which

I cannot

live

Without

Live and fly, too

From a heaven that is this place

Yes

To quiet

I can lift my weary head

Find in the moment that sleep will at last overtake

the thumping sick of yellow

In my brain

A moment

Of quiet then

Beautiful nothing it is

In its coat of empty

It is this

This You I seek

To quiet the weeping ewe

Who would seek refuge

The thickness of the tree trunk

In my woods

splayed in sureness and stubborn

yes of maleness

This gnarls on it twisting and sure

Holding through the multitude of voices

That prayed for the century’s dead

This is the Solid I seek

And the length of it

The solitude rooting down

where the worms and the cadavers

Lie

So a stomp on me

Will not and cannot change my course

and quit me then

and Then can I have the antidote

To this present crumbling

So I am found in one piece

After all

There is only the whisper of hope

In this tree-lined world of grass and snakes

And flowers that fruit

And water I see

Flowing placid

That Dazzles the hope of release from

All

ALL being larger than the world

Or the stars and galaxy

And Everything in between

The whole of my

Of my all

Of ever flowing deeds

washed

Clean

Deeds writ in stone before one is a speck

In your father’s eye

This forest,

These hills and mountain passes

Washing tenderly

The soot of my soulprints

dissolving

And crumbling happily

For me-so easy

like a pile of

Sand in the shoes

Tilt of the shoe and the silt falls away

All that has been traveled

Clear and empty now

Brand ever new

And it is this place that brings me hope

I long for this bareness

To be naked of sins

That have not yet come

And moments that have not yet

Ticked out

But hang in the air

And milk that has not spilt

But still dangles on the edge

that precipice

Of tyrant Fate

To lie awake and yet sleep

To be innocent of want

And the unceasing fugue in my brain

Like soldiers marching back and forth

But all there is

For a Lassy like me

Is the wish and flash for

Green

What else is there

to hold and sink onto

The Green is all and there is

None else

to save my heart

The yolky egg

The requiem

To be filled in with

Nature

So this becomes my picture

And scene

The last rite

to hold my ear close to

the leaves that shiver

on the wind for a change,

instead of me

For release I sing

The roots to grab hold

Under ground,

Not me

And the water

To flow

In its container

Without the flooding

Of puddles

O’er me and my mortal frame

Release me

I am cooked now

And can crumble

Finally

In god and green