The Way You Love Me

Tied back into our history, we are

an accident walking with a handful of
sharp rocks. Out of the trees and
up from the water.
Still afraid of a lion at night.
Everything is afraid of a lion at night.
It is the way they grunt out
in the bush.

And now here we are, riding in the dining
car of the continents with the clinks and
shakes of the rail. Out of the big windows
the country goes away.
It lives with the loneliness.

We are here because I want to show you what
I've bought. Here: these hills.
I will fasten them around your ankle.
Here we will comb the hills with
houses and trees and wheat.
We will sit on that low rock wall.
We will taste mouthfuls of this wind.
We will peel the world of its time.

If there is trouble, my pocket is
full of rocks. I will throw them
at night at
the lion lapping up water from the spring.
In this way I will see no trouble.
I am a man of this age.