Likening

As I reach, I am born
to a word never spoken,
I am swept in the shale
and the stone and the sand,
and tactile is made
that which is formless,
and calcified in the moment
that I hold in my hand.

My freedom, it lies
in the things I have named,
but more in the felt,
in the raw and the pure.
For we have resigned
to the realm of the known
the same that is silent,
in touch, and is sure.

To the crush of an apple,
I am likening it;
with the weight of the head
of the baby at birth.
The cut and the cradle
mark the creator:
light never seen
underground in the earth.

Today I become
as the lid of the eyeless,
the nerve of the dead
that has wakened anew,
and fine beyond measure
that connective tissue,
that filament woven
me and you.