Barry Ballard
We wonder about our reasons for being
here, why this square hole we have cut into
the earth has evolved into a bleeding
twist of stem, fruit, and weed (a soul removed
from its own symmetry by its random
search and retreat from light). We only react
to the hard places we breathe, leaving us stunned
into corpses where we amplify the facts:
that worms have eaten away the soft words
that grounded us, that our limbs are covered
in disease. And we return-complaining
of "life wasted," dreaming of the world
we planted, afraid of what's to be discovered
in our short season, in the holes we've been framing.
