POEM OF THE DAY BY JAY WRIGHT

What Is Good

Out of the water call

my luminous breath,

into the bird, intending serpent, red,

who shakes himself, white,

out of that forest body, black.

Red gourd head spirit of the bush,

your breath is speech;

your speech is ordinary, pure.

I take you from the blue

glass of my sacred windows,

I ring you cold upon my father’s weights.

I would cook and save you

in my body’s house alone, light

you in the useless prism of my own desires.

I hold you in the yellow

parchment of my soul’s hand.

Once I took your body for the shape

of all I walked upon, your god’s voice

for the second of all my light.

But now I count my sins against

the ordinary syntax of my days.

Bird of the hard wood,

I would transcend the dog

and fox of my father’s prayers,

the corn, the monkey, lion and the seed

cut crudely by the cross in gold,

the black figures of a Christian death.

Bird, so you would change,

and flutter in my mother’s eyes.

And in my mother’s eyes

still bodies have rhythms of their own.

The light of dead hearts, my governors,

leads my body to a stillness.

I speak of stillness, and you see

I still grip your rhythm to my body.

Rhythm of my shade, an elephant skin.

Rhythm of my hat, the llama’s hair.

Rhythm of my coat, the cactus’ beard.

Rhythm of my trousers, silkworm web.

Rhythm of my shoes, pig hips.

Rhytm of my seat, the heart of a tree.

Rhythm of my hands in the beads.

Rhythm of my hands in the cleansing water,

of my eye in the perfect form of stillness,

the perfect light of my mother’s ecstasy.

Composed, I am saved

by my mother’s reason,

my neighbors’ needs,

my will to go beyond the stillness

of my gods’ dreams.

Luminous breath,

teach me compassion for this

my complex body.

-Jay Wright