Totem

By Tucson poet Richard Shelton,this is one of my all-time favorites.

TOTEM

stars you inquisitive
animals
shall I tell you the same things
again shall I tell you all the places
I went when I had nowhere to go
shall I draw you a map

while it is still night
with morning around the edges
I will take the face of dawn
in my hands and say it

surely if I can tell anyone
I can tell her
that I have found
the gods and discovered
I am not one of them

if I must have
faith in something
it might as well be the desert
as the river it might as well be
today as tomorrow my fingers
as my teeth it might
as well be despair

all I can do for the moth
is light the candle
all I can do for the forgotten
is forget