My hands pray to nothing.
I am the world of the little sand-grain.
I allow nothing that I am to be taken away,
I turn from the camera
against what it takes from me
The bird came, he looked maybe at the sky,
I thought he is looking at nothing
and contends with it. I contemplate
writing the history of birds – Alexanders
and Hitlers and St Jerome, strutting the branches
When I go back to my people I feel
like an invader. I belong no place
and live only in my speaking.
I am content with the woman I took long ago
and the children she pressed out crying.
I have what I want, I have what is not much,
a few friends, books and songs, right now
it’s maybe the middle of the fifteenth century
and they’ve begun to fight all through winter.
If they come I shall defend these things
and ask nothing of theirs. I am the stream
that doesn’t know it wears stones away,
the beaver building its dam for itself
not for the hunters and those who take pictures.
I am the leaf lying downwind and use
only a few things. I am salt in the shaker,
my hands pray to nothing