1.
Here it matters that it rains     no door 

against a crippling wind     Cold cracks 
the lips of every hunger    and dirt 
breaks itself to build     No gutters    
No passing off the muck of animal lives    

I want this economy where rot has time
to reconceive    my longing
a tender weed    straining 
toward the only sun

2.
		     It is almost enough 
to end here    	taut and decisive    

in the fertile stump of want     tilth     
soaked to mush and rolled 
into fallow fields    ready 
for the press of pen or plow

It is nearly enough     
          to stop at this pitch 

of declaration    wanting the life 
I have been given:    to work in the open     
where rain and wrack matter    to turn 
the ground    inviting migrant seeds    

to be where nothing goes to waste      

3.
Except I have backed away again     crawling     
a child after all     into the shelter 
of a dark passageway     In the crooked throat    
a reflection in the rainpool stops me   


			my father     saying     
			you can want 
			if you can bear
			its fruits


4.
Is want a shoulder     gristle between bone
a brilliant lever tempting exhaustion    
or does it simply reach without object or end?
Is this the melodic strain of mere yearning     or prelude 

of shoulder into wing? 

5.
		               I can find my way back 

by the tinsels of hair snagged on the cave’s 
rough comb: there are maps in my head    
a homing in my bones     handprints to mark 
this retreat and this chance of return    

My shoulder can surely move     want into work
contemplation into act     but here 
	
     where it matters     

is a bird a bird 
without the sky    

     or is song 
    		bird enough?