SENTIENT

Awake at four
with the old brain beating
its fast tattoo—
I want, I want—
I think of love,
of the hot scramble
of limbs in darkness;

 

of the mind
pulsing its secrets
in metaphor;
of synapses firing
need, longing, love;
of the body
with its midnight hungers;

 

of the mind
caught between dream and waking,
wondering what it is,
self-creating always;

 

. . .

 

of God,
whatever she is
asking the questions:
Who are you anyway,
and how did you get here,
and what is the distance
between two stars,
between two brain cells,
between two lovers?

 

Here in the rosy
pink-ringed dark
all the birds
are sentient in their own way
as we—
on the verge
of wakefulness
and song.