A pebble knows its home is on its knees and with my heart like a dog 
digging feverishly for a bone, I’m humming this tune for my sponsors. 
The journey takes me from one light to another; it’s indeed a dark wood, 
yet lamps hang from the trees like turquoise moons, and a centipede 
with a broken neck can be roasted over coal providing drumsticks 
not just for me, but for the forest’s entire extended family. 
Just now there are clouds and I’m eating rice. A branch bows down 
to my chopstick, recognizing at once its brother. From the heart of the seed 
to its very fine mouth is a magical distance to travel. Though odd, 
the melody I sing is merely a common fraction, a ditty of a sum 
made from the body, the mind, and other sound parts. And now as day 
comes to her end and the planets bloom like small campfires 
across the wilderness of night, I believe time is nothing but another place 
where people who are dead now once made love in the dirt.