WEBVTT

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I wanted to read you something
from this strange book

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that I wrote--

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poems based on the
science of the planets,

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but they are mainly
very long poems in here.

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That's a little
tough to do, and what

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I thought I would read is
a villanelle from the Earth

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section, it's a cheater's
villanelle if you care.

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Those of you who care will
be working it out, I'm sure.

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It's called When You Take
Me From This Good Rich Soil.

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Maybe what I should tell you
is that the expression "bone

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house" is repeated in this poem
and it's an Elizabethan term

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for the body.

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When you take me from this
good rich soil to slaughter

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in your heavenly shambles,
rattle my bone house

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until the spirit breaks.

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No heart of mine will
scurry at your call

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to lie blank as a slug in the
ground, where my hips once

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rocked and my long
legs willowed.

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No heaven could please me
as my lover does, nor match

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the bonfire his incendiary
eyes spark from dead coal

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through my body's cabin.

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When deep in the cathedral of
my ribs love rings like a chant,

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I need no heaven.

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Though you take me from
this good rich soil

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where I grew like a
spore in your wily heat,

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rattle my bone house
until the spirit breaks.

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My banquet senses are
rowdy guests to keep,

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and will not retire
meekly with the host.

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When, midwinter at the
gorge, I saw pigeons huddling

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like Cro-Magnon families,
no seraphic vision

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could have thrilled me more.

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When you take me from
this good rich soil,

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and my heart tumbles like
the chambers of a gun

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to leave life's royal
sweat for your numb peace,

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I'll be dragging at Earth
with each cell's tiny ache,

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so you must rattle my bone
house until the spirit breaks.

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