a poem from several days ago. 16 May 2008
Eating the Sun
Looked into my breakfast this morning
Into potatoes stained by beet blood,
and silky yellow yolks
that held tight to purple onions,
Granules of salt sparkling a crystalline constellation
of the Day.
These nutrients
trust each other,
according to intricate rules of
the solar system
–loom of lights–
and they trust us too,
to consume:
we subject these beings to
1 hundred thousand deaths a second,
exploit them in grace and, …
silence.
Silence:
in which they are tortured alone,
turnips and potatoes turning over in the pan,
the far off rumbling of stomachs: trust:
Not so much because they attend
their deaths in humans,
but because when
we eat,
we eat the sun;
we bring this delicate rule upon their world:
that the sun’s outrageous broad touch of flame
–his enduring explosion of raw light–
should get to feel
the most sensitive touch and tickle
–thread the needle of our experience–
and bring his great opus
into focus
as one of his smallest effects
disappears into my belly,
shy beggar of fortune,
and now the sun’s jealous
as we turn to
stroke a cat
or pull another
of his weeds.