Openly, yes,
         With the naturalness
         Of the hippopotamus or the alligator
When it climbs out on the bank to experience the

Sun, I do these
Things which I do, which please
         No one but myself.  Now I breathe and now I am sub-
         Merged; the blemishes stand up and shout when the object

In view was a
Renaissance; shall I say
         The contrary?  The sediment of the river which
         Encrusts my joints, makes me very gray but I am used

To it, it may
Remain there; do away
         With it and I am myself done away with, for the
         Patina of circumstance can but enrich what was

There to begin
With.  This elephant skin
         Which I inhabit, fibered over like the shell of
         The coco-nut, this piece of black glass through which no light

Can filtercut
Into checkers by rut
         Upon rut of unpreventable experience
         It is a manual for the peanut-tongued and the

Hairy toed.  Black
But beautiful, my back
         Is full of the history of power.  Of power?  What
         Is powerful and what is not?  My soul shall never

Be cut into
By a wooden spear; through-
         Out childhood to the present time, the unity of
         Life and death has been expressed by the circumference

Descri