Offering to Cerberus

I have given my whole life to words,
chewed this dog-hunger into a long meal.
Have mercy, sentry, on these bones,
for I arrive without a scrap of flesh!
I plunged my hands into the mysterious gold
of my beloved Catalan and hold them out
to you today empty of gain, white with ash
from my own fire, as the sound of fragile glass
recedes in the chasm of my head.
I dance in the pain to make them laugh,
to win their barked applause,
and in the end they crown me with a jester's cap.

Black Land

Rest from your trip. Beneath the golden eye
the kingdom stretches forth forever. On the plain
of calm and solitude the wind drifts off to sleep.

Upriver, between desert walls,
the god's ship draws near. A thousand banners
flutter on the masts, ablaze with sun.
Rower priests sing ancient anthems
to the lord of death, as they pierce
the mud, the swollen waves.

 This light, the peace of this long day,
are yours, traveler, if the vast earth
of eternal wheat cries out to you by your own name.