Psalm from Below
I am under the sea
I am under
the sea under the earth
I am under the sky
I am in the earth of the earth
the eye of the eye
the heart of the heart
the mind of the heart
the listening of its listening
I am closing my eyes
I am listening to the gone
I am listening to the going
even when not
speaking or singing
I am listening to a foot
slip inside a boot
I am listening to a finger
undoing a clasp
touching a wound
pinching a rope
slipped free
from its knot
suspended from heaven
its tangle a root
I’m listening
to the hoe in a field
the short handle’s snap
or is it a nail
tapped into wood
I am under the dirt
listening
to the birds in the elm
listening to the elm
listen to men become a sky
and the elm
become women
and the women
listening to the sky
of the elms
and the men becoming
empty
and the birds
making sky
of their emptiness
I am under the sky of the birds
I am standing under the sky
I am standing under
the earth beneath the earth
I am standing under
the sky under the earth
I am facing east
like a mouth like a drum like a sun
I am dropping to my haunches
facing east
I am opening the gate
to the place
where the stream
meets the sea
I am listening to knives
I am listening to harvest
I am lifting the stone
to let you all in
I am letting the children
run past me
I am letting the mothers
run past me
I am letting the men
who are wind
I am letting the wind
of the boar
with the bloody tusk
and the war of the empty gun
and the storm of the empty men
and the sky of a storm
of laughter
There is no time
I am the ear of the ear
of the earth
I am the heart of the innermost
heart
I am the fire of the heart
and the water of the heart
I am still
I am not moving
under the earth
under the birds
who make a sky
of their laughter
I am stillness under the earth
I am waiting to be moved
by listening to the sky
Nothing is gone
under the earth
I am waiting to be moved
by the sky
under the earth
I am waiting to be moved
where nothing is gone
not even the earth
under the sea
***
Author photograph by Mark Rosal
