Dear Blood,

I am stealing you
from the title of a poetry book

written by an old professor
who tried to teach Pound

but found only dust
– what all blood turns to

when trying to explain red
as both your reason, and your fury

as though beige grit can hide
your crimson grin

or the stain we’ve left
on this once-green ground.

We are old
friends, Blood; we span fingers

like starfish; we are salt
we are of the sea

which rises to wash our footsteps
now that we have overstepped our welcome.

Blood, we flow together
out the long, dry riverbeds

in bark canoes laden with feathers, hides, horns
hacked from the dying young

(their elders felled long ago)
the traverse tricky, pricked with sharp stones

pitiless as the Mojave sun.
What will we do

with you, Blood, what
incantations can we scribe in your screening dirt

what screed is this
what pity

is left
in the shadow, the halo, the remnant

of your passage past the piercing knife
we left in exchange?

—–

Read more from M on his blog: https://grapeling.wordpress.com/

Featured image credit: National Geographic: 8 Mighty Rivers Run Dry from Overuse