THE WORLD'S VOICE

a language composed of foliage
leafy living tissues slashed
scarred over ditches irrigating
into a staff held before

your eyes can laugh and
taken away after the page
turns over in sleep and
rests still in ashes

where weeping will lower you
by the river's edge
sliding past slow,

the written tongue

unravels birds

crawk.

(messengers unfastened)
:shadows scanning the land

waking the dead
tremble

from a branch it watches
you read past it

try writing it down
on dead skin

and watch it rot
let it feed in the cemetery

listen to it chuckle softly
from a cave mouth