Nutshell Kingdom: The Only Color is Sunlight
2009
We ride on the big waters of language.
It does not go well.
We speak and our rafts spin and eddy.
A fallen tree floats past
As we spit out a mouthful of river
To say the things we need.
There are many currents in any stream.
But try to go back, go back to the headwater,
Under a confusion of rhododendron,
These are your first words,
From a small cave, constant incoherence
Of frigid colorlessness, the only color
Is sunlight so cold
It stings the tongue.
Go back and make yourself small,
Small enough to crawl up into the tiny spring,
A space before birth, and if you could,
Attach yourself to the smooth ice rocks,
Slippery as eels.
Attach yourself as an insect would.
Build a cocoon, a calcium home
Where light and water are the same thing,
You are going to unhatch.
When we sleep, the whole world sleeps with us.
So we hope.
