Hunger and Cloud

Hunger and Cloud

Marly Youmans

In dreams, we eat the cloud of unknowing,
Not with medieval knives from Solingen,
Not with rose-wrought Sheffield silverware
Once belonging to a hopeful mother,
Not with lacquered chopsticks snagged on Sado,
Not with congee spoons from Tang of Shang,
Not as with fingers tearing cotton candy.
No. We eat the cloud of all unknowing
With gold: a golden fork, a golden knife,
And mouths are brimmed with streamings of the cloud
That tastes of honey, fire, the names of things,
Rain in rivers, luna moths on sumac,
Beginnings, endings, sap, elixir, bread,
All speared onto the tines of sand-cast gold:
Until we laugh and weep for endlessness,
For the flash of the knife and the fork,
For every single cell gone glory-gold,
For grief and gaiety in everything,
For glimmerings new-glimpsed beyond the cloud.

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Marly Youmans
Poet & Author

Marly's most recent poetry book is Seren of the Wildwood from Wiseblood Books. She also has a book of poetry, The Book of the Red King (Montreal: Phoenicia Publishing, 2019) and a novel, Charis in the World of Wonders (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2020.) Find her on Twitter, Facebook, or www.thepalaceat2.blogspot.com.

Photography by Henry Lyman Sayen