Murmurs from the earth of this land, from the caves and craters, <br /> from the bowl of darkness. Down watercourses of our <br /> dragon childhood, where we ran barefoot. <br />We stand as growing women and men. Murmurs come down <br /> where water has not run for sixty years. <br />Murmurs from the tulip tree and the catalpa, from the ax of <br /> the stars, from the house on fire, ringing of glass; from <br /> the abandoned iron-black mill. <br />Stars with voices crying like mountain lions over forgotten <br /> colors. <br />Blue directions and a horizon, milky around the cities where the <br /> murmurs are deep enough to penetrate deep rock. <br />Trapping the lightning-bird, trapping the red central roots. <br />You know the murmurs. They come from your own throat. <br />You are the bridges to the city and the blazing food-plant green; <br />The sun of plants speaks in your voice, and the infinite shells of <br /> accretions <br />A beach of dream before the smoking mirror. <br />You are close to that surf, and the leaves heated by noon, and <br /> the star-ax, the miner’s glitter walls. The crests of the sea <br />Are the same strength you wake with, the darkness is the eyes <br /> of children forming for a blaze of sight and soon, soon, <br />Everywhere, you own silence, who drink from the crater, the <br /> nebula, one another, the changes of the soul.<br /><br />Muriel Rukeyser<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/murmurs-from-the-earth-of-this-land-65279/
