Bly's Badger, Keats' Stars

With whose voice do I scream
as I root my feet in the earth and expand like a stalk
imploring for heaven?

The scream
takes all the effort of my life,
but will make no more sound
than the lifting of fingers from the keys before the final bow.

But, it is not a voice.
It is the hollow wind of the universe
breathing
in which I am a flapping banner

Oh, but to fashion my form like a whistle and
capture the glorious friction!

The expensive friction, the difficult friction,
the grit of one presence saying
I AM HERE
as it meets another
and moves across a surface

Oh, and I love friction,
the unnecessary heat returned to the system.

But oh, to feel!
It is to know that something at least is and was -
the blessing and the curse of substantial beings
to feel the rasp and feel the proof of friction.

And, with this friction,
this inefficient heat,
this proof of being and changing,
with this friction as my guide,
I craft a whistle
so that the hollow breath of the world
may catch the sails of my being and SING
before
this breath expires.


I breathe gratitude to those who came before, and left me their images
with which to think.