Barefoot Among Immensities

Flowers in their shackles are born to die;
Green and blind they writhe.
Man strides blithe, 
His day increases,
Barefoot among immensities.
Hunchbacked in my bag of dreams,
Interred in the dirty mushroom dark,
A whole man crouched in a wolfing skin,
I come tumbling upright from nightmare,
Wild from flower-red wombs and Ozarks
Of dreams that never end.

Animals like men are made to dream,
And run in dreaming day. 
Needled to day-
Light I awake
Aroused from sleep's sensual rut;
I grow alive from grave to groomed
In the mirror's terrible square:
A wreath of hailstones about my neck;
A smile snakes ear to ear;
My eyes bone-dry asterisks are
In the bright of the morning star.

"Life, life rife with hours and dangers,"
Is the cry that aches 
In my throat;
Am I a flower, a blind sun writhing,
Or dreaming animal unconscious as teeth?
I reach for immensities and powers
I wore in my dreams like a coat.
I arise to daybreak's damnation
And I weep at the breaking light--
A fallen star among rank straw,
Barefoot in my animal manger.