I had always assumed the right to white herons, to the tickle of fish
through light, that right to each unenumerated privacy
as washes between those words we dare unspeak.
This is what is left to us: Heft of shoulder, height of body, weight
of tongue at the strike point. We are copper, we are tin.
You resound. I begin.
________
John M. Bellinger is a long-time editor for The Comstock Review – 35 years in print! This would not be his first published poem. Hopefully, it will not be his last.
________
Humanist Manifesto
[American Humanist Association]
