Body Knowledge
For Lavina Blossom

I used to think the hands 
knew nothing, faithful tools,
feeling around in the earth,
flexing the versatile thumb.

I knew the hands could feel 
the texture of bark, the tip 
of the kitchen’s sharpest 
knife, yet called this 
dumb sensation, without sense.

But with focus, the fingertips
can find a dime in a pocket 
full of change, can learn 
what year it was minted. 

The blind can read a book
or tell the time by touch. 
The clever hands of lovers 
find out the other’s secret places.

Clearly, the hands can close 
the circuit between body
and mind, can draw a line,
can write lines too, like this.





Getting Lost, Being Found



Getting lost these days may be impossible.
Satellites circumnavigate the globe,  finding 
home, whether or not we want to go there.

Though we might take the body 
far outside its proper time and place,
it finds its center every time, a gyroscope,

spinning in mid-air. So it is with me.
After arcing over continents 
and frozen seas, where no one lives, 
I see that journeying itself is simple.
 
How much more difficult a journey
would it be just staying where I am
and making something new of what I have?