If I could I would gather all the words from the wild, pick them like berries     and press them into these pages to     bleed them, beautiful, into my notebook I would chase syllable streams that refresh dry banks and stop. at the quarry where I will cut confused hands on stone,     going through the   ruins of my       dreams and I will bottle my cries to     pour over the altar of my art If I could I would answer the laughter in the wind, unravel the rhetoric of the rain,     and walking dirt and gravel transcribe     the vernacular of city streets I would record every note of joy from children and undo the silence of grandmothers,     ask them   about dogged hope I would keep on west of my despair, right through the dying sun and spell     the sunrise as he lights…