by Kendel Hippolyte

    For days， weeks at a time， i lose whatever it is

    which keeps my senses softened¹ to the sentience² of the earth，

    to hillside grass running lightly before a silver wind

    or a far slope rippling³ like a muscled shoulder

    or how the gradine， faceted⁴ pebbles⁵ under me will rasp

    as i ease in closer， resting my back

    against the rough-skinned body of a gliricidia.

    All this can suddenly go without a hint

    like a room slips into darkness with a passing cloud-

    except， i don't know how，

    it happens with no slippage of the sense of self.

    On drizzled⁶ mornings， when a silver fluttering beats to a white rush down the hills，

    i can believe that seraphs bear the rain to us.

    By afternoon， wind has lost color， stones are exactly stones，

    the green ascending⁷ hill has stiffened⁸ into a surveyor's gradient.

    The names by which i used to call the earth to come to me

    have hardened in my mouth to scabs.

    Who was it then who saw the wings of seraphs？

    And who is looking now， squinting⁹ with eyes of quartz¹⁰？

    i want to understand how， inhabitants of the same life，

    they do not know each other， they have never met；

    how， looking out of the same windows， they see different worlds.

    i want to find a way that they may see each other.

    i want them-the glint-eyed one of rationed¹¹ sight，

    the other， dream blinded even in the day's light-

    to meet and in that meeting learn a threefold vision

    that hopefully i may translate into new lines of language，

    lines braided from their voices and my own speaking together，

    an utterance¹² which， if even for the duration of only a few words，

    will speak our earth original again into creation.

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