Elements of Composition

Composed as I am, like others,  of elements on certain well-known lists,father's seed and mother's egggathering earth, air, fire, mostly  water, into a mulberry mass,moulding calcium,carbon, even gold, magnesium and such,  into a chattering self tangledin love and work,scary dreams, capable of eyes that can see,  only by moving constantly,the constancy of thingslike Stonehenge or cherry trees;add uncle's eleven fingers  making shadow-plays of rajasand cats, hissing,becoming fingers again, the look  of panic on sister's facean hour beforeher wedding, a dated newspaper map,  of a place one has never seen, maybeno longer thereafter the riots, downtown Nairobi,  that a friend carried in his passportas others woulda woman's picture in their wallets;add the lepers of Madurai,  male, female, married,with children,lion faces, crabs for claws,  clotted on their shadowsunder the stone-eyedgoddesses of dance, mere pillars,  moving as nothing on earthcan move &mdashI pass through them  as they pass through metaking and leavingaffections, seeds, skeletons,millennia of fossil records  of insects that do not lasta day,body-prints of mayflies,  a legend half-heardin a trainof the half-man searching  for an ever-fleeingother halfthrough Muharram tigers,  hyacinths in crocodile waters,and the sweettwisted lives of epileptic saints,and even as I add  I lose, decompose,into my elementsinto other names and forms,  past, and passing, tenseswithout time,caterpillar on a leaf, eating,  being eaten.