Behold This Heap
I have nothing to say in this windy world
I use my yellow hand
to point at the horizon: there’s nothing but a line
I gesture wildly at the heavens, where there’s nothing
but the abysmal swelling and disappearing of clouds
I stamp the ground to summon its greens
but a rock hits my heel
and a crow cackles
This may be: what is to love nothing
The river on my right is clear, revealing a bed
of rocks that also love nothing
Those ancient rocks make a clicking sound when the water moves,
but it means nothing
I drink from the river like it’s nothing
I enter the water
What is the balm of Gilead? What is the rushing water?
What is my head doing in it,
refreshed
in good order
I am refreshed
I recall my head before this brightness
when it was bland like a rock
I was a barrel full of will, yet weak like a girl
The mouth on me cackled in the night
and pursed when it should not
I am buoyed by this water, swaying the way it goes
I’ve got the body of a youth, no bag of bones, no boom
I wag in the river like a child, like a fish
I waste the day, I laze on the shores again
My palms are white, white, white
I eat the eggs of ducks, of quails, stolen from the rushes of the bogs
I’ve stolen my breakfast by the skin of my hand
I put an egg in a pan
I swivel it
on a white-hot element
I’m happily fortified by this heat and fat I whoop!
And from the fringe of my hand, the glint of the plate, I wave
A herd of beasts, burdened on Earth, unload themselves onto the plain
The wind will be howling
I curl up like a child, head asleep on a rock
Behold this heap
