Animals

On that first day We woke up restless Stillborn, bleak, dry and dark Blood dispersed in the water black Ink without paper Language without form Absence without grief It was all ours And ours alone Hear the scalpel-sharp intake Of a baby’s first troubled breath On a day like this, there are no words Yet our voiceless cry, it must be heard For our wings, they are tired And there is no land in sight...

I was there at the breaking of dawn When the unknowable heavens Were divided from my unknowable heart When the mountains of my spine Emerged within the salty womb And trees took root With a harvest of life And breath And the pumping of my fragile heart Sustained by nothing but light And my waking life Was divided from its dream And my subconscious disturbed the surface Before diving deep on holy gill And my...

It’s not every day we wake up to find the world around us burned to the ground while we were sleeping No, not every day But it was today And we hate it when this happens Loved ones pass Nothing lasts It was too much to ask And yet here we remain… unanswered Our voice in the darkest night… unanswered Our screams from that hill out in the wind… unanswered The promise of an answer...

I was just a young word that meant “monkey” In a beautiful terrible word that meant “jungle” Under the dome of a bright blue sky From which the eagle dipped down And rose again with monkey in its claw Beside a crystal clear river Full of a certain monkey-devouring fish Beneath the soaring green tree With branch made of venomous snake And limb full of golden chimpanzee Those greedy thieves they were mean And one...