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The Why Of It
People get up and put their shirts on
in the morning and try to do their best,
is what you said
about each person you broke bread with
in all the broken places
and palaces and bazaars and backroads
and villages and fishing towns
and glitzy high-rise spires trying
to reach the sky:
which is maybe the most loving thing
that can be said for people.
Did you touch god? I want to know.
In touching so many palms, so many eyes, hearts, bellies,
so many parts of god, did you swoon for the divine?
Did you feel the devil’s fingers in the swish
of tropic evenings, the ice that swirled
in a thousand glasses, sweating beers passed
across coals steaming with juices of
pigs, goats, lambs, fish?
You put away food like a magician, hiding it
in your lean and sloping frame
hungry for more
hungry for life
ready it seemed to eat
through the framework of the world
the true world, the one
you wanted us to see.
Political machinations
religious power-plays
human beings caught up in the…
