Hunger of the World

The world comes to us waiting to be born.

The world comes to us hungering

to be represented, to be re-presented

in symbol, in word, in art, in wine, in love,

in clean, clear-headed prose,

musical and rhythmic,

repetitive as a chant,

in poetry aching to turn language

into the unsaid peregrinations of what is.

All movements incarnate in the note,

the uncreated high C.

The world lusts to be shown itself

in itself and in all others, the specificity

of the earthen thing, the textured image

that flows leche as from a blue nun.

To be light-headed

is to be grounded.

To be grounded

is to soar above the world,

the atmosphere, the space-time continuum,

to soar to a planet’s-eye-view of life, to soar

past asteroid and comet, never missing

a pas de deux sunk deeply into the crust of the Earth.

To be grounded is the poem,

to transcend ground for sky

is the song. To sing, to sigh

is to show all that is.

To show is to again become

the rhythmic light, the musical dark,

the ravishing hunger of the world.