were asking nothing of sunlight
and upper air,
but children fed them.
How lovely the gold and open fins
and the mouths gulping air,
breaking one world through another.
The feeders look like saints
in their kindness,
women throwing crumbs
on earth’s table, what a feast!
Everything’s a soup kitchen, a bread line
for the sweet.
Life gives life
and it’s no great cost
so eat, sing,
offer this life of earth
back to earth.
And for the people,
down on their luck?
Never mind, you say,
even the earth has a cold eye
and wants to swallow us whole.