(1) Anthropos
Body is made, not born. It is a sort
of relay race: a thousand handshakes fade,
the one hand survives. Across it, thwart
lines remain, remind of the unmade.
A spider links the moments of its going
by stretching out its spit across the sky,
early and later threaded, all one doing,
never a break between, never an I.
Not so son of woman. All my reach
began from one and lasted till another,
another falling hand, another breach
while heart observed: an armless helpless mother.
Whom shall I give this hand, its thousand flaws,
never a one but longing its way across?
(2) Exile
Now let my body’s all be used. But how,
who regather red that would not follow,
bleed sap back and into bough,
gasp breath home to heaving hollow?
Shall I tear my hand from its own shadow?
bid lost knees and elbows disengage
from dust that flocked to welcome them, and go
along with me one man, one dance, one rage?
No, wound is me. What could not keep
this pace or stature is my other way.
Let breath be wide and holy bone be deep,
lost together, one in the wait of day.
My body scatters into living whole,
each foot bleeding from a side, a sole.
(3) Stand
Shall I go to the hills for an answer, find in
pines stunted on some late slope
my new law? Those west ones are thin.
They have height only, none of my hope.
I call them the old names. My grandfather carved
hearts on their faces, cut bark free
and found a knot under. See how the light-starved
longer better ones bend, live on oddly.
Groping wise, their rust branches crawl
where rising is not good, point to a ground
even the rain runs from, let cones fall
seeding in snails’ spittle, starlings’ sound,
knowing in darked query alone’s told
sun’s answer, habitable hold.
--Lloyd Haft (from Anthropos, Querido 1996)
