Friend

Put your ear to the ground, friend,
as the porcelain skyscrapers bristle
under the clouds today,

So the snowed earth
may tell you what it knows
and you will know me better.

I know a place obscured by this crown of buildings
where these clouds have great stems
that end their thirsts in cold green oceans.

Though the sky winds, an ashen knot:
leaf and petal and vine,
starving for the sun

Somewhere above at the top
I have seen the crust of the victorious blooms
brother over brother, seared, undimmed,
heads raised at their wilting.

It tells you, friend:
above all droops the embossed sun,
all our mad loves writ confident,
ornate in fearful deep savanna lines.