Moly

    Senesco sed amo.
              — Ezra Pound

Just this.  This simple herb,
black rooted, milky white,
this gift from the god
will I carry.

Just this into hesitant evening,
into ripening sunset at last
among watery shadows.
And  Oh, these lengthening shadows

seeping over the mesa, over bunch grass
and sage.  These.  Into these
will I enter.  Gift,
which I carry within me.

Sweet gift of life carried
into these waters, remote
in the slow day’s dying,
in each weary day’s slow dying

to vision and silence, blue pools
of eyes to be entered, blue vein
along her ankle, loose hair fallen
over her shoulder, to be entered again

each evening, soft down on her neck
arching back as she takes me and tenses
and all through that long liquid delving,
that pleading and tasting,
that death and rebirth,

this gift from the god will I carry. 
This simple reminder 
                that love makes us human,
                that love keeps us whole.