I think I'll make this the last poem titled, "Invocation".
Dirt and stone, if I may know you as you know yourselves,
if you do have a sense of yourselves,
I walk upon and study you as my next brothers and sisters.
In this only way I know how to think about you.
I'd pick you up in my hands and run you slowly
through my fingers.
I feel so close to you, if only not to fear, but to know
and make you my kin.
Even if I must do it alone.
I am resigned, if I must say it that way.
Try as I might, I cannot think myself exactly that.
I see us each in separate worlds,
and because I must join yours and gradually become as you,
I want to know what home will be like there.
If I could say that from you, can be made in men and women,
how happy and relieved I'd be to know we have a, sort of,
exchange program between us.
In which we spring up out of the dust
and are greeted with open arms to tell,
that all is well back there growing its fruits.
And then to embrace all of us together and celebrate
with drink and dancing.
And to see one into the soil with solemn benedictions
on a current of joy.
Waving him farewell as he disintegrates to dust.
I speak to you in pity for myself.
Speak to me and return the love I must have for you.
Since I must be buried one day in you
and would go towards love again as am I,
let us be reconciled to one another.
Dirt and stone into which my flesh will turn, this much
we have in common.
As I cannot speak to my bones, nor my blood, nor my own flesh.
Why then must I speak?
What says I must speak if I am not answered?
What then that I should speak or am I speaking at all if my own
flesh and bones cannot answer me.
As if already they were partners of the stones and dirt.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]