The Itch

Life is an itch that crawls
From the groin, from the belly, to the brain:
The slow ooze running under the sluggish, vast roots of trees,
Clawing its way up impossible heights into the steepled lofts of prayer
Where the green masses raise hymns to the sun.
Eyes open. Ears twitch. Bodies rear up disturbed,
Groaning psalms of hunger.
Spring lust twitters and coos in the din of the primal fog of waking.

The weary and the sated
Fall back in animal dreams
Or bouts of dismembered words and musings
Like strains of flute melody lost in a labyrinth of canyons.
But the hungry rise
To scratch themselves until the itch subsides.

George Chadderdon © 2000