Rip Open A Canyon

Rip open a canyon,and fiery magma spills out :
a child is born, seized from the darkness of sleep
and thrust like a soft and wounded animal
into danger and betrayal that weave themselves
sinuous and insidious throughout the cannibal world.
Crash and clash and wearing down erosion in the grind :
grind, grind, grind, the cosmic mill grinds,
and what has dropped wet and soft into your nest arms
must be warded as a precious, fragile treasure
you'll give the gift of shelter in a world that laughs
ghoulish venom-droolings at shelters, and hard, hard laws
enstrangle and encroach upon the free you push back
with will and hopeless might but for a moment to give
that young one a chance to breathe and dream
in the midst of meteorite-storm chaos turning the late
evening's morning dazzling and dangerous. A man
stays up, watching the stars fall, hands upon hoe
or spear, leaned against the wood or brick of house
and guards over the sleeping cubs and mother, proud
just to be the one in the cold so they may be warm.
And then sleeps in all day and growls if disturbed,
or wakens grouchy, a snarling bear, out to hunt
or hustle, lay a trick, find significance in toil
and trouble to bring back some loaves to dip
into surprise nail soup, with cabbage and thrown oats.
The whole damn thing is not easy. And if they find out
the world your raunchy loins pulled them into too quickly,
how would you answer the curses uttered against
the cross with innocence? Your hard, sad soul knows
you'll slowly have to wean them out, skin by skin
as a leek, into the sublime senselessness
of the terrible beauty of world, the vale of tears
that doesn't care at all, and you'll bet this soft lump
of love and wondrous night fears against
the entire bulk of the tailspin trainwreck world.
You're gambling madly, nearly guarantee of great
disaster, world's ravenous hordes hungry and ready
to gobble in resource wars and history you nor any
sane man ever chose in any time to tell, in this
improbable garden you choose to plant seedlings
against the inevitable hailstorms of cold, heartless immensities,
and you call this fatherly dare "masculinity", and will dare anyone
to be man who wills to fisticuff the endless trespass to garden.
Gardening hands are always manly, a man who will take on
the rough edge so his wife may soundly sleep ...
These are spells I hardly know yet in dreams, yet dreams
that have kept the world alive forever.