for Trout Black

Hairy skull, thick flesh,

you are older than I am,

and younger. Your body,

crippling a little each year,

has within it

a constant turning.

I turn your head,

feeling the bowl of it

in my hand.

There is a head

inside this head,

and another, and another,

and inside each head

a voice. The hair falls

from all of them at once.

We are quiet together,

listening to the scrape

of razor against scalp,

thinking of the one who,

2500 years ago, first

did this to himself,

first cleared the underbrush

with hesitant hands, first

scraped leaf-rot and humus,

scored and pierced earth

and stone and didn’t stop

until he hit bedrock,

then walked away . . .

In us today.

December 8, 1974    

* The shura is the patch of hair left on the head of the monk- or nun-to-be and is shaved off during the ordination ceremony.

∞

From the Fall 1977 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 14, No. 1)

Text © Stephan Bodian 1997-2020