No Name #2

I seldom forget the wide eyes of my age-
emerald and pierced,
whole-punched and maddened,

but sometimes

I'm painted blue under the sky,

And always looking up,

always whispering

some nothings to a deafened land.

And then I flake,

and no command of language,

no amount of patriotism,

no vessel of God can bring me back;

for I, in the truest sense,

am lost.

I know how not to be a man,

for some threatened bird

has taught me only to dig wells

and let sink my teeth in grief.

What a false revelation:

to toil whole days,
to save and save

till some new fish comes ashore,

holding its breath

like time itself.