'An Ocean of Time' Lyrics

From Habitation, Collected Poems by Sam Hamill

Lost Horse Press, 2014

​

An Ocean of Time (Habitations 4, from Edible Earth)

An ocean

of time, vast seas of memory:

detritus

contains the seeds

of beauty.

He dragged from the river

an ancient cedar log,

half petrified,

and used it to bind

a book. From shark-tooth, cuttlefish

and fossilized ear-bone of whale,

pigments for ink;

from stone, the soul

of stone, earth from earth,

transformed, transfixed–

from thistle and feather,

a made thing,

and yet it is an organism,

it has a life.

I say the trees listen,

and even soul has mind.

​

Earth (Habitations 1, from Edible Earth)

Earth. Orange alpine lichen

slowly digesting stone.

Black earth.

Red earth, brown earth,

icy dust.

Canyons carved

through centuries

by water and ice.

Stone canyons,

mountains thrust up

by shifting continents.

Across the river,

the great trees

bend in the winds.

The living are the habitations

of the dead.

How small is a man.

Dolphin Song

Your hands on my body

bring dreams of summer gardens,

islands with white beaches

where dolphins swim.

I drift under your fingers

like a shadow under water.

Whenever you touch me,

my whole body glistens.

Road to Rama

Where is the road to Rama

and how far can I go alone?

Here is the road to Rama, friend,

here in the dust of our bones.

And here is the house of an Arab

with its sleepy summer garden,

its olive tree and its shade.

You count the bullet holes, my friend,

and fill its empty craters,

but you cannot number the dead.

And here is the house of a Jew—

and the strangest thing—

it looks exactly the same:

the same garden, same olive tree,

same craters in the garden,

same bloodstains in the sand.

Here on the road to Rama

I hope to find my brother,

the poet Samih Al-Qasim,

before it is too late.

I have wandered far into the desert

thirsting for his words.

Have you heard my brother, the poet?

He will break your heart and mend it

with the sadness of his song.

Have you seen my brother, the poet?

I am weary of smoke and dust,

and the road is long, and I am growing old.

I will die on the road to Rama,

my heart cradled by his song.

How Small is the Man (Habitations 2, Edible Earth)

How small is the man

who reads the stones

and listens to the whispers

of the poplars?

How large is the heart

that measures the heart of a man

with a handful of earth?

How much hope and sadness

is a man with a handful of earth

and a heart that unfolds

in the moonlight.

Listen closely

to the stars, to the flutter

of nighthawk wings,

to the silence.

In the moonlight the susurrus river

tells its secrets,

and the great trees shiver.

Nihil Obstat

The bees are building a stairway toward heaven.

Soon the world will cloud over and the bees

will fall silent and die among the dead blossoms

of scotch broom and thistle.

We who often buzz

among our own works will not listen. This

is called natural selection and is left

for specialists to explain. Someday everything

will be explained in the footnotes of basalt

and granite, in igneous thumbprints

of another century.

For now, there is the song

September sings to welcome home the autumn.

We cannot save the bees. We cannot save

each other.

The birds of prey that stagger

down the skies will wait for us

at the other end of history,

as we, stung

by the brevity of our song, enter

the resonant long corridor of dying light

that leads us not toward heaven.

but towards home.

Hermes Rising

In the middle of the night you have opened your eyes

and risen.

And walked out naked into the night where the world

is suddenly still and the cities

have been swallowed whole and everything’s present

as never before:

the air rising around you like waves,

shadows falling off, trees sinking

farther and farther into the earth

which smells like passion.

You dreamed you were chained to a cliff,

a phoenix

gnawing at your liver, you dreamed you were

falling and falling,

but now you know that you can’t fall.

And you breathe in the light of stars—

Sirius brightest of all—and your flesh takes in

that light, and you listen

for the sound of feathers,

for the slow thrum of your blood that never lies,

and you lift up your arms to the night,

certain you can fly.

Unforgiven

From the sea,

this sea of green trees

appears deep blue

a huge, gentle

tsunami

by Hokusai.

Thus we sink

into ourselves, stones

through water,

coming to rest

in the perfect calm

of the unforgiving world.

The Great Trees Shiver (Habitations 3, Edible Earth)

The great trees shiver

and the river is laughter

and stones are polished

by rolling

when the river rises.

The patience of stone,

a congress of trees,

and the witness of the moon—

If only human emotion

could be found

in the things of this world…

Even the river runs

out of time and drowns

in a desert or empties

into an ocean.

'Out of Roots' Third Psalm

Out of roots grown white and swollen

that sift the earthly depths

of sand, rock, clay: soil;

Out of soil sifting and sorting

clear drops of water

fallen from the sky;

Out of blue sky and gray,

stars blazing night and day,

the sun’s warm shine;

Out of sun-warmed leafy tips

of lofty branches

on ancient aging trees;

Out of roots and branches

out of sunlight and moonlight and rain,

out of grasses, brushes and trees

comes all the air we breath.

A Letter to Han Shan-tzu

I think of you often these days,

old master, when some people say

my poems aren’t poems at all,

but merely occasions

of political provocation,

and of course they may be right.

Like you, late at night,

I scratch my songs on a wall

by firelight, and drink, and bow,

only to begin again, somehow.

View from Helicon

Sometimes, when the sea

grows unutterably blue

and the sun resonates

with the residue of song,

and the day is green and clear;

sometimes, as the sea combs out

the dark fathoms of her hair

and the seasons stop to listen

as at equinox, vernal

or autumnal;

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sometimes, when

the sea nymphs and the sons

of Helios gather on the water

to dance to invisible guitars

and the flash of their bracelets of silver,

the world grows impossibly still,

small and quiet and attentive:

perfectly happy, almost

imperceptibly alive.

​

'The Song Sings Itself' Fourth Psalm

South of narrow cirrus clouds

a few stars softly pulse

in the night’s dark blue.

Half a moon wears the clouds

like a fine lace veil. Light fog

lingers among bare alder boughs.

Wanting to make you a song,

I walked an old logging road

salal has half-reclaimed, and

found song in the name of things:

cattail, camas, and thistle,

kinikinik, and yew.

I cannot make you a poem to sing

the fragrance of the scotch bloom

blooming in the night. The song

sings itself in the heart of things,

the poem is in the chimney-smoke

vanishing in the clear, still air.