incarnation..in my carnal life

in my carnal life, my soul,
my horse's soul and snorting,
touching each other,
trotting out into spring

searching nothing,
just moving along,
moving and moving,
in the light, patterns

of  shadow, wind
in my ears, my mind
blown empty, i have
been part of this world.

in my carnal life
i arrived home
returning to me
into my confusion

i arrive where i am
all through joy and
pain, through my
former life,fire, hell,

it is all one,
wakes me at night
wih dreams
i cannot remember

mixing memory and
desire, i float
in the dark on
my lonely boat

and remember
the darkest hours
and the worst pain,
the wildest lust

and all violence
i felt and i witnessed,
still me, still being
part of all, light and dark.

when i reached my house
in Uganda i could hear
no birds singing,
all had been eaten.

in the vast blackness
sounds reached, drums,
dogs barking, goats,
far drunk singing,

still, part of all,
but no birds in the
mornings, only chicken,
and from toothless mouths

the cackle and cough
of old women rolling
tobacco, the children
crying quietly in fevers.

i remember all the dying,
the misery of starving,
the stink of a multitude
of  diarrhoea and sweat.

and standing in the sun
the survivors, bright eyes
and a broad grin, welcoming
and embracing all, all, all,

living in the moment,
presenting it as a gift,
indifferent to the torture,
the suffering, a prayer

rising in laughing
in all of their face,
untouched by thought
but ready to kill, birds..

and still me, all a part of all,
remember making love
with a princess, her skin
covering me all over

and her voice bringing
long hypnotic lies, stories,
stories, all for nothing,
herself in trance.

i remember the soldiers,
fleeing through the bush,
across thorns and stones,
no shoes, the feet one sore.

i don't want to know,
maybe i remember
so i do not look at me
who is empty, empty

of all meaning.
i do not make sense.
i just am.
so i return from  horse

and memories, i reach
home. even here, even here,
empty but part of all.
I must find water,

water for my soul,
i must find wind,
wind for my spirit,
i must find wings.

Here in my carnal
life, i long for kisses
and i long to melt
like the snow melts.

Here on this greening
soil, on the pale scars
in the grass, the winter scars,
here i want to stay,

to rest and grow
in the great silence
of the sky and to
wake for my birthday.