Cuttings

This urge, wrestle, the resurrection of dry sticks,

Cut stems struggling to put down feet,

What saint strained so much,

Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?

I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing,

In my veins, in my bones I feel it --

The small waters seeping upward,

The tight grains part at last.

When sprouts break out,

Slippery as fish,

I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet.