Benjamin, delicate are the dirts of this earth.
How frantically the pine's roots do grasp
for purchase among the dark dry grains!
How fragile is that heavy sky, balanced
on the shuddering points of green needles.
And how the squirrel scrambles tittering
from shaking limb to shaking limb,
in search of solid safety, a place to rest.
How like a woman whirled by waves where worried waters swirl!
How like a man astride, one foot west, one east, some trembling great divide!
You, who flutter there, just come from eternity's birth,
know what it is to be not of that world, not of this.
You see in that first infinity why you are here, why we.
We shiver in the cosmos, a breath from life to death.
Our humble planet wobbles in its humbly wobbling circuit,
and on and on through the stars. Breathe deep, Benjamin,
and let your exhalations pass these shadows, these salts,
these bodies, these floating orbs, and warm the face of God.
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