Like pungent fields
of rich crumbling fertility,
naked to the noon day sun,
aching to be steadied by clinging roots,
we all of us live, move, search.
I see these fields of upturned faces,
groaning for miles and miles.

And all the while the air is pulsing
with something more real
than hungry bellies,
frigid bones,
craving hearts.

Oh won’t you come into our dusty,
dirt-streaked, crumpled, beggar world,
our tear-stained toil!
Lift our bleary yearning eyes,
make us remember the distant hazy mountains,
tender, austere heights.

Somewhere over all this sweat and soil,
tears that grasp for something more,
You match us ache for ache,
for who we were meant to be.