Archived: Benumbed, I Slept by Gil Ochoa

Benumbed, I slept in the old house of winter
as the Earth and sea began to stir.
No creature sighs of grief when the thaw washes land,
when the green awakens from the stone.
Burrowers shake off their sheets of dirt.
The soil hums with the murmurs of their dreams.
A flock of birds sing into the silver wind.
A choir is at work within each soul.
Day usurps night. Hours lengthen.
The sky pales from blue to bone white,
and I cannot rest through the veil before my eyes.
What hides in the shade of here?
What skips through the grass to graze my skin?
What runs my spinal frost through the tepid sea?
My shore is bewildered in its massless wake.
Each step I take plunges me through sand and nether-clay.
Where may I clean my sundered nerve?
When can I march it through the brine?
Where can I touch that isn’t wound?