The Only Thing I Know

There is a glass door in my house.
Beyond the door the rain-wet earth
is soaked and glistening,
and pearls of moonlight drip
through the grass, like a field of stars.

Sometimes I wander alone
through the house
and run my fingers across
its splintered beams
to feel with flesh
what the heart can no longer live.
In silence and solitude I confirm
my body through breath.

Years ago I walked into the desert.
Now there is blood on my lips and
a thirst that cannot be quenched.
But I know the direction I travel is right
because the man I was yesterday
is gone today,
and the man I am today
will be gone tomorrow.

Though I am all dust and desert,
there is a compass point of becoming
inside me. It whispers in moonlight
to the grass and to the rain-wet
branches of trees.

There has become too much of me.
I want to be like grass in the rain;
stripped down to wet simplicity
and being. All the rain is
is all the rain knows.

I am opening the glass door of my house
and stepping into the night.
I will become like grass, like rain.
I will wait barefoot in the cold,
the hem of my pants absorbing
the wet reflection of the moon.