URANIUM

Mine is the spine in the beast of the earth,
Whose vertebrae heat and flail with light

Until bits of bone flake and fly like ships so deep
In dark space the eye cannot find them out.

Mine is the earth you walk on; it is my back.
Mine is the sky which fits your horizon like a hand-hewn lid.

My hands are the hands.

Therefore mine is everything and all.
The monster, the goblin, the gargoyle,

The hunchback, the leper, the vampire,
They are the forerunners, the cherubs.

They are mine.

Mine is the principle of pure change,
The hand that stirs the night sleeps,

That veins the dark to marble,
The cold touch on the lips

Is mine.

The lovers' hiss that rolls the stone and seals the door
It is mine, the eerie light.

The tinge of the skin which changes the skin
Is my hand.

The long fingers which move through you,
Playing and changing the tune

On the carillon of blood
Are mine,

Are long and moving through you,
Palpate the molecules of mountains

Whose stones suddenly see with light, those long fingers
Are mine.
Mine the contagion of change.

The day of creation is mine.
The seventh day is not mine; there is no seventh day.

The doctor's light which shines in the eye,
Blinding and changing, is mine;

The laboratory of change is mine;
It is the whole world.

The flower that flowers on the landscape of dreams
That are not dreams,

Whose leaves bloom out of dark dreams in full light,
Are mine,

Mine the animal with two tails, the animal with no paws,
The jaws which lock, the peaceable hawk,

Whose skin, once it touches my skin, touches and changes all else,
is mine.

My skin is the shedding snake skin,
And the snake, it is mine.

You who were once dead rock,
You who were once ocean's scum,
You who wore the monkey's skin.

You are mine.

You who ate of the tree,
The poison in the apple was mine.

The second garden was mine.
Now you have found me and brought me back.

Now you have taken me up and let me loose
Now that you study me and contain me in lead

I have you in my teeth
You are a log in the great dog's teeth

You are clay for the moulding,
I am moulding you again,

Your earthskin trembling like bubbleskin,
Your trees crying out at vein and at root,

This is the second change,
I am cleaving what you know from what you know

As the lightning cleaves the air,
Mine is the light you cannot see,

The thunder you cannot hear,
I am storming everywhere,

Lightning rods, your bones, I am coming,
You cannot stop me, you are not who you were

It is not that you called me
It is my nature to arrive

I am the garden and the snake
Whatever you will become,
You are mine.