my pride lies

scooped out and bleeding on the barbed wire;

and my palate, cut with bitter honey.

i am small in the ebon silence-

no sound save insects of the eve,

no medium a man might use

speaking of his devotions

each time to the air.

the cosmos is not greedy with its truths.

i raise eyes and see

the arm of galactic star-mist

spattered across the void…

this is the why of so many things-

the universe,

great eye (so imagined),

passes over “i”

and sees nothing.

great pillars of dust, my genesis;

and flowering grass, my revelation,

are more me than i.

so, am i to hurl my fragile mass upon the rock

and devoid my senses of this?

not to hear horses moving through the night-fields

or taste the heavy pine air

or suck in the damp earth’s scent?

“i am alone,” we say in small voices,

lost children staring into the black.

says the universe, “so?”, staring back.