Red Clay, Blue Ground

The light on the blue desert
Reflected sky like a lake.
Life, thought one of its children,

All of life, is singular,
With a singular habit,
Creation by destruction,

Sustaining and enlarging
Itself by eating itself,
Gorging on its engorgements.

Perhaps that’s too unpleasant—
Life as Shiva or Saturn,
Descent with self-consumption.

Setting methods aside, then,
Remember that opening
Provided by perspectives

Unfurling under thin skies—
Green pins and chirping machines,
The many competitions

All glinting one morning, one
Blue, lonely adumbration,
Horizon to horizon.

Life was not mother and child,
Or not only the many
Of those life’s doings enclosed,

And life was not separate,
Creator of creations.
Life was only Earth’s one life,

Every turn changing faces,
Adding names and mysteries
To the hot pursuit of itself,

Matter transformed by hunger,
Made eloquent by searching
For the continuation

Of more hunger and searching,
Grown large at small parts’ expense.
You’d noted something like this

Before, right Gaea? Meanwhile,
More daylight covered the ground,
And life rose up to meet it.