The Man Who Wished to Feed on Mahogany

Not the man who wished to feed on Mahongany,
Who happens to love and not be loved in return,
Not mourning in Autumn the absence or loss of someone,
Remembering how, in a yellow dress, she leaned,
light-shouldered, lanky, over a plate of pears--
No, no tricks.  Just the man and his wish, alone.

That there should be Mahogany, real, in the world
Not no Mahogany, rings in his mind
like a gong -- that in humid Haitian forests are trees,
Hard trees, not holes in the air, not nothing, no Haiti
No zone for trees nor room for wood to grow;
Reality rounds his mind like rings in a tree.

Love is the factor.  Love is the type.  Love is the poem.
Is love a trick, to make him commonplace?
He wishes, cool in his windy rooms.  He thinks,
Of all Earth's shapes, her coils, rays, and nets
Mahogany I love, this sunburnt red
This close-grained, scented slab, my fellow creature.

He knows he cannot feed on the wood he loves, and he won't.
But desire walks on lean legs down the halls of his sleep,
Desire to drink and 'sup at Mahogany's mass.
He wishes weight his belly.  Love holds him here,
Love nails him to the world, this windy wood,
As to a wooden cross.  Oh, this lanky, sunburnt cross!

Is he sympathetic?  Do you care?
And you, sir; perhaps you wish to feed
On your bright-eyed daughter, on your baseball glove,
On your outboard motor's pattern in the water.
Some love weights our walking in the world.
Some love molds us heavier than air.

Look at the world, where vegetation spreads
And people's air with weights of green desire.
Some crosses grow as trees and grasses everywhere
Writing on wood and leaf and flower and spore,
Marking the spot, "Some man love here,
And someone love something here.  And here.  And here."