"First Body"

Click here to listen to Mark Conway read this poem.


May and the great trees rage,
white sap burned up
into leaves. Turn
and beneath the branches see
the actual air
moving, hesitant, green.
This is when the soul knows
it has a body,
by wanting
to leave it.

In the morning, bowed
under blue rain, geese beat
their heavy way back
to the city-state
of mud. Rising, the wings groan,
trying to fly away
from the body.

Winter
was hard, the cold broke
weak and strong, together. Stay
and watch the robins scream
over scattered barley.

This is how we came to
love this life—
by wanting
the next.

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