By Robin Chapman

What Luck 

to be tuned to this fraction


of spectrum we see as rainbow, rainbow,

that our two small ear-drums


move to the hum of another’s voice,

those twin stretched membranes


vibrating resonant with breath,

that these gyroscopes of our inner ear


track our cartwheels when gravity tugs,

that our tongues taste honey and salt.


What luck that we can smell the rain,

that these hands can touch, cradle,


caress this skin that enfolds us

all our days—what luck to be born


root and blossom and branch of life

into this world we’re shaped to—


to tremble in its flux

with the hunting hawk, the mouse


the layered rocks, the eelgrass meadow.

-originally appeared in Ascent and the eelgrass meadow (Tebot Bach),

copyright © 2011 by Robin Chapman