How

Within the long seed-time of how,

and light that occurs because we do,

is a bump in the mud, sun

that is no one, then a woman

called man: hand in a fin, eye

in a tree, fistful of stone

and its edges that fly. Within

the dim how of history

is a tongue that can grasp, reed

become flute, and a ripe furrow.

Is a thumb pressing mud

turned to a bowl-rim, fired

in the slow circle of learning

how a kept flame becomes home.

Within the long rolling forward

of skies and 4-footed dreams

gathered into one body, is a man

called woman.