What Grounds Us

What Grounds Us

Even in sleet or snow or despair,
you say, we must build. Build what,
I'd ask, but I know your answer:
it doesn't matter. Our hands are
meant to stack the faceless rocks
gathered from a hundred fields
to make a hut, a house, a wall.

Tell me this: how can you build
if you are still under the ground?
Down with the roots and stones,
dirt-blind, inexpressibly hungry,
your fingers scrabbling up, up
toward the sleet and the snow
toward any kind of human light.