Reprisal From the Shore

What now try our souls at evening's faint hour? I Shall not let some heavy foot use this heart Like a common shoe. I shall yet defy The tiger slinking to tear me apart For daring to the forest edge to come And rinse my soul with trees and find ransome. Here far from spilling oil the ocean bleeds And far from tattered feathers and doomed things Amidst the green of lung my fear recedes In every bud promises eternal springs. Here the caterpillars' yellow teeth contest My love that cannot surrender forest. Earth boils hot with indignation at man's Polluted ambition, the gas of stars Spill over into our discomfort, sands Crawl slowly from the shore; greed, green, scars The crinkling vision, my trees pant for light Where sea rising, inches close through the night. O warriors of the old way I call For courage that shall the new day proclaim I leave my skin, my blood, my tears of gall Above the shame of dividing walls. Lame Though the tiger limps, I turn no back to him, He's agile as a lie - I keep the rim My heart is a temple for His coming The wind conducts the forest blooming choir And birds, old parishioners here, humming From their branchy pews, a litany inspire From every shreiking, flying, croaking thing I see bright stars, and suddenly want to sing.