I wanted to read you something from this strange book
that I wrote--
poems based on the science of the planets,
but they are mainly very long poems in here.
That's a little tough to do, and what
I thought I would read is a villanelle from the Earth
section, it's a cheater's villanelle if you care.
Those of you who care will be working it out, I'm sure.
It's called When You Take Me From This Good Rich Soil.
Maybe what I should tell you is that the expression "bone
house" is repeated in this poem and it's an Elizabethan term
for the body.
When you take me from this good rich soil to slaughter
in your heavenly shambles, rattle my bone house
until the spirit breaks.
No heart of mine will scurry at your call
to lie blank as a slug in the ground, where my hips once
rocked and my long legs willowed.
No heaven could please me as my lover does, nor match
the bonfire his incendiary eyes spark from dead coal
through my body's cabin.
When deep in the cathedral of my ribs love rings like a chant,
I need no heaven.
Though you take me from this good rich soil
where I grew like a spore in your wily heat,
rattle my bone house until the spirit breaks.
My banquet senses are rowdy guests to keep,
and will not retire meekly with the host.
When, midwinter at the gorge, I saw pigeons huddling
like Cro-Magnon families, no seraphic vision
could have thrilled me more.
When you take me from this good rich soil,
and my heart tumbles like the chambers of a gun
to leave life's royal sweat for your numb peace,
I'll be dragging at Earth with each cell's tiny ache,
so you must rattle my bone house until the spirit breaks.