At the river’s edge,
I fell to my knees, peered deep
through the white tigers hunting beneath the surface,
and from the bottom I saw a hand rise
with food for the hungry, light for the lost–
because they grasp for horrors
when they ought to write turquoise songs
in the wind with the sharp end of bones–
because they gulp for fullness in their centers
when water simply won’t do–
rise with ropes for those who fear heights,
ice for the bruised, poems for the insane,
planets for the exiled, pollen for the bees,
rise with sunlight dripping over the wrinkles
on her palm to break on the ground
into smaller forms that warm the soil and swarm
the grass blades and with gold fingers fine as seed hairs
greet the moon as if that spiderwire light
might be the last gray to warm the dark for eons–
with forests, mountains, everglades, whale songs,
marbles, tortillas, fruitcake, blue and brown eyes,
tiger stripes, bears spiced by cinnamon,
whatever the human hand can hold
and I took it, slipped into the chill,
and left both shores behind.
