And the last poem in Reckonings, it's
called "Begging to be Born".
"No gentle birth.
No easy waking.
Years of my life, I've slept with only this dream
of the world, that the world was a dream that afraid.
Paralyzed into poems where I've nursed
the unacknowledged passions of my life.
The cutting edge of death moving surely even through this dream.
You're dying all around me.
You leave me speaking this calm voice that
records guts and preserves.
This voice I've dreamed accepts me when there is no exception.
How can I wake and survive?
To wake now is to die for the crime
of wasting my life in a sleep, a reasonable and calm.
Wake me.
Wake me now.
And to such pain, I cannot speak,
but must cry out cries so strong from the roots
of their anguish, roots of their joy that my hungers sing."