Bread
(excerpt)
-W.S. Merwin
Each face in the street is a slice of bread
wandering on
searching
somewhere in the light the true hunger
appears to be passing them by
they clutch
have they forgotten the pale caves
they dreamed of hiding in
their own caves
full of the waiting of their footprints
hung with the hallow marks of their groping
full of their sleep and their hiding
[...]
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Each rosary in the gift shop is one penny closer
to God
or even better,
closer to the urn brimmed with prayer.
Somewhere the hat walked out
without its head
and then followed the cane
without its hand.
Somewhere in Italy a preacher
forgot Latin and all his memories
where in Chinese, hiding amongst
the caves of language.
Prayer’s footprints are pale on earth,
next to sleep, its something
that they still arrive every night,
full of words that cost a penny.
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1 comment:
You might now think of the circumstances under which someone would utter these comments. Perhaps your speaker is there in the curio shop of a church, watching the tourists buy their trinkets?
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