Birdly light as wings, slim and pored as leaves —
For finding suspect flesh and stone;
For rejecting basicness in baser ores, of trees,
cadmium, hibiscus, mollusca and fur;
For pitying hearts thralled in glut of earth.
To not realize that privative, deep hunger is different
from depth — we ate our smoke
thin notions, dwindled, and shed credence
in the matterlusts now well beyond our breadth.
Capable only of dreams, we dreamed up
torments and lacks in the full red belly
of masterless delight,
and feared them.
Most of all, we feared it was simple.
That when scales alight from eyes and eyes
awash on solid shoals of sight,
all dreamed demons tatter on
the harsh, the brisking smack of happy
hardened hearts
brimful, combly-chambered
and abuzz with blooming joys,
nectar-drunk and sunned.
And nothing lay beneath this.
— That by then we would have lost the taste
for anything but burnt incense, on its way elsewhere.
