(Songs to the United States of America)
I seek life
in the crevices of trees,
roots that touch, and
the flower’s hidden womb.
I crave life
not in the cerebrations of conceit,
dry winds to sooth the battered
self;
I seek life, in silences and acts,
self-prepared to birth our conceived selves.
To touch life
in the infant’s grip; the calloused
hands
black-ringed around the nail; the
boy’s high laugh
tremulous from what is unbroken;
in ageing tremors, the coward’s
despair, the mind in flight;
Here where life is bent and broken
and beaten, twisted and piled into
metal heaps
I mother the winds of our separate
fears
cradle the laughter that is taut
between our eyes.