Soul Food for Winter

The view from on my knees, my mouth engaged,
gives me a taste
of soul and what soul craves.
The ribs that lift and lower
are the waves,
the hemisphere of belly half the earth.
The universe contains us
like a verse
without a rhyme or reason. 
We converse
in wild and measured rhythms.  

What life loans
are the sibilants of yes, 
the flattened tones
that forced through clench of teeth, 
express in moans
desire, self-containment, 
love and loss:
these speak of a dew-moist meadow,
flowers, moss
and fungal growth
that thrives where sun is lost.

Has ever been mown a meadow without a spring?

I rise up like the sun, 
the homing taste
of nature on my lips, 
the spice and zest
of sex delayed, then wrested; 
joined with cloud
and tree and grass and dung heap, 
free of doubt;
aware that memory matters, 
I take in all
that is your soul's defense, 
its arsenal

of you within your skin, 
hair loose and flowing,
moist limbs spread wide apart; 
and also knowing
this vision will sustain me
when the fall
drops down its winter leaves
to blow and fill: a job for someone else
to bring a friend
to walk this very meadow
and clear the spring.

Has ever there been a winter that does not cling?