“Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death,
 And again death, death, death, death . . .”
 -       Walt Whitman, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking 


 Have heard sermons 
               in the shape of waiting.
 Have wondered if God meant everything created 
               as if creating always has a purpose. 
 Have seen change in passing /witnessed miracles in chants 
               of misunderstanding what God may have wanted,
               what nature may have intended. 
 Have been dirtied from the inside.
  
                             Earth said not 
               to be a starving artist, but a well-fed man 
               cultivated in stern unhappiness with chaffed
               hands /mouth wet in lack /bloodied eyes 
               that have dried from drink to rotten drink 
               smoky herb to hinder yet free one’s self-esteem—
               it is harder to understand what waiting could 
               have done to the impatient seed.
  
 Have confessed sins in silk /am brutish in the milk supplied. 
               It wills to want and what thou wilt will do.
 Hear you say you know who 
               it is covered in divine dirt. 
 Have sought out purity 
               in piety of pursuing the self. 
 Have found more in failure than have lost in certainty.
  
                         Earth said not
               to rely on peers but to understand the faces 
               of the strangers that lurk in rear view mirrors,
               faces gritty in gold /eyes looking for silver,
               eyes struck by stone /blinded by brick /hands 
               soggy and cold stretching for absinthe. 
  
 These lessons are the sun /the changing of light 
               in its degree—melting the ice /defrosting the seed.