And so I make it with the ground itself,
which only deepens as I stand and dig,
this soil my home now, layer unto layer,
top and subsoil, crust and crumble.
Make it with the whole imagined earth
I catalogue by root and branch, by hand
and mouth, by what is said but mostly not.
With hard black coal that’s hidden underneath,
immortal diamond-eye of truth.
With you, my star, that rises in the east
and takes a gaudy turn across the vault,
then settles into soft, alluvial terrain
in this wet month of pent-up buds,
when frivolous and fiery thoughts begin
and birds assemble, summoned from the south
like words almost forgotten but not quite.