feeling that comes as a question or a cry in

the night or clenched teeth and hunched shoulders

on a busy street.

 

       that comes as a bullet from a brother who huddles

white-faced and confused; twisted with hate who shoots

at the feeling that he cannot name and so shoots a brother

 

       that comes as an ache in the belly and eyes

stupid with hunger; the crop burned dead these last

years and all the seed gone, we ate the stringy dying

cattle now all is gone but this dying gnawing ache in

my belly; hunger they have named it but it is the

feeling; the feeling that we all know.

 

       that comes as desperation near madness that is in

all our lives and no one is untouched.

 

       and the earth waits hung on the edge of a gaping

black void; the beginning of time or the end of time;

the beginning of life or of death.

 

        and the earth waits; it is a quiet madness that

we all live and the days go by us older and no wiser

wondering will it be a split atom or a grain of wheat

or a knife,

          or an army,

                    or a god,

                             or a curse,

                                       or a blessing.....