Lately, each experience feels uncommon.
Living in one room with a pot-bellied stove,
a wooden crate for a bookcase, a rug
of woven rags, my thoughts beat against
the unknown; nothing is ordinary.

It feels wrong to live and not respond.
I paint a boisterous sea on a wooden board,
and then, with a soft brush, I calm the water;
and in one self-portrait I am a whirlwind.
My fingers stink of oil colours and turpentine.

Reading aloud from science magazines,
how rain is made, where light comes from,
knowledge sounds holy; all human wisdom
is an arsenal, a treasury. Drunk on it all
I believe I can see the future.

Lately, my dreams unfold like prophesies:
a bear carries a boy on its back;
a giant hand in the clouds reaches toward the ground.
The boy is learning to shepherd stars.
Wild herds gallop, they stampede thunderously.