Sunday, May 17, 2009

Earth

"Let the day grow on you upward
through your feet,
the vegetal knuckles,

to your knees of stone,
until by evening you are a black tree;
feel, with evening,

the swifts thicken your hair,
the new moon rising out of your forehead,
and the moonlit veins of silver

running from your armpits
like rivulets under white leaves.
Sleep, as ants

cross over your eyelids.
You have never possessed anything
as deeply as this.

This is all you have owned
from the first outcry
through forever;

you can never be dispossessed."


~ Derek Walcott ~
from Sea Grapes

2 comments:

L. Espenmiller said...

Wow, you just keep finding remarkable poems. The timeliness of this one is eerie - it relates to something I've been envisioning for a series of drawings/collages. I've printed a copy. I may post it on my own blog, if you don't mind. ;-)

Jessa said...

yes, of course, lisa!! post away!! the vivid imagery in this poem is amazing...as i read i actually feel myself becoming a tree...basking in the moonlight..ants dancing across my eyelids. i love it that he uses the word "armpits!" what would this world be with no poetry? i can't imagine...much love, j