CANTO 59 Did you really mean

 

Did you really mean to call into question

the given?

To let cupped hands dissolve

 

legs merge with upright spine

 

warmth flow with the rising tones

of the body’s song swelling in the broad reaches

above the forehead?

 

And did you really want the sense of threat,

leaping thoughts refusing to recognize their cage

the top of your mind open to

thoughts clawing the air that might claw back?

 

Give me a focus, give me a focus,

cries the making mind,

senses unaligned.

 

Fingers dissolving on the keys.

Wrists held up like stubs.

Forearms, upper arms, underarms, disarmed.

 

Shoulders, rib cage. Spine a trunk

swaying in tune with the breath and oh the breath

the taking and the giving

 

March winds rise a gust up the spine

shakes the possum awake

 

giving where self gives up its lies