I have the poem in myself
And you are the poem everyone wants to see.
You are the sun.
I am shadowy.
No one learns to read.
We only learn to see.
Nature has us reading
Her signs, to satisfy
What Nature has to be:
Breeding, breeding, breeding.
All you think you do—
No matter how mute and obscure—
Done for none, or one, or few—
Is done for one reason: to make more.
So the poem in myself
Is a love letter to you;
You are the better poem,
Because of how you look and what you do,
Even if it is walking,
Or washing clothes.
You don’t need anything,
And nobody knows.
Slaves to nature,
Slaves to her commands.
Read about the slaves
In foreign lands.
Read of history, and switch every soul,
Man for woman, black for white.
Would anything change? No?
No? Then what’s the point?
Read about the lovers,
The burning lovers, the sad wives,
The workers in the workshops
Making models of those who always lose their lives.
Read of the singer singing his song,
The crowds, listening, crowding to belong;
Read of the builder, building the house,
For baby and father and mother and mouse.
I have the poem in myself—
There! You may see!
You are the sun.
I am shadowy.
