Seedling Air

For Edward Dahlberg

I do not change. I grow

The kernel that my hair,

My thought, my blood, enflames.

I sing my seedling air:

I shout this ancient air

Into the hail of days

That washes through my skin

To pound and drench my bones.

I keep my light within:

My light burns on within

Flooding my endless rooms

Of pure and feeling brain

Till streams of wisdom-warmth

Murmur within each vein:

They chant within each vein

Will to withstand unchanged

All grindings of that air

Though torrents press down hail

Harsher than they would bear:

For what has will to bear

But outward change that strives

To enter in, and breath

But growing bloom that wavers

Under the hail of death?