Want to read one more poem from that book.
It's the final poem in it and it's a--
I want to make it at least to link
with the prose, a couple of prose pieces and poems
that have not yet been collected in books.
It's called Gift.
I have to trust what was given to me if I
am to trust anything.
It led the stars over the shadowless mountain.
What does it not remember in its night and silence?
What does it not hope knowing itself no child of time?
What did it not begin, what will it not end?
I have to hold it up in my hands as my ribs hold up my heart.
I have to let it open its wings and fly
among the gifts of the unknown.
Again in the mountain I have to turn to the morning.
I must be led by what was given to me as streams are led by it,
and braiding flights of birds, the groupings of veins,
the learning of plants, the thankful days breath by breath.
I called with nameless one or invisible untouchable, free.
I am nameless, I am divided, I am invisible,
I am untouchable, and empty.
Nomad live with me.
Be my eyes, my tongue and my hands,
my sleep and my rising out of chaos, come and be given.