FOR MORRIS GRAVES
It’s what the minnow
Clasped in the soft beak
Murmurs to the hooded Spirit-Bird
Bearing her from liquid to liquid;
What shoe leather chants to the road;
Sleepers whisper to their dreams;
What seaweed sighs to waves,
Seed to wind, word to breath;
It’s what the boar, scooped by Vishnu
From the end of every exhalation
Like a coal to rekindle this garden of fevers,
Says with such tender and weary marvel:
“Each time
you carry me
this way.”