POEMS
ORDER OF DIET
Salt of the soil and liquor of the rock
is
all the thick land's food and mead.
And jaws of cattle grip up
stuffs of pasture for their bellies' need.
We, at table with our knives,
cut apart and swallow other lives.
The stone is milked to feed the tree;
the log is killed when the flame's
hungr~
To arise in the other's body?
Flank of the heifer we glut, we spend,
to redden our blood. Then do we send
her vague spirit higher? Does the grain
come to better fortune in our brain?
Ashes find their way to green;
the worm is raised into the wing;
the sluggish fish to muscle slides;
eventual chemistry wiIl bring
the lightning bug to the shrewd toad's eye.
It
is true no thing of earth can die.
What then feeds on us? On our blood
and delectable flesh: the flood
of flower to fossil, coal to snow,
genes of glacier and volcano?
And our diamond souls that are bent
upward? To what beast's intent
are we the fodder and nourishment?
May Swenson
