ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS
Sequence: 3
SETTLEMENT
1.
it is
first the fear of starvation
that makes the town
then the muscles for biting
off pity that strengthen
settlers must be hard of heart
willing to steal their interior
2.
a tide of hands altering the shore
the shore is a line that holds up
who I am is only the outline
of a land where the world arrives
from the loosening shore I am beckoned
to an undefined interior
to shake its mystery into falling
hardship and longing have worn
the trail I follow and drive me
their unrefusing beast forward
3.
in the dark a weariness immune to fear
replaces the blood's rich movement
at the helpless boundary
the body's minerals escape effortlessly
into a landscape without compass
the unmoving place of loss and home