Earth

I shall visit Scotland
And know that I am no visitor there.
I shall feel my hands in my native soil,
And rub it on my face,
And roll in it like a dog in fragrant garbage
Or a pig in shit.

I shall carry my native soil
Back to my nowadays home,
My unreal estate--
Not in great, oblong boxes,
Like some Transylvanian noble
Of peculiar appetites--

But in small crescents
At the ends of my fingers and toes,
Behind my ears (Don't you ever wash?),
In the corners of my eyes

Where it will mix with salt tears every day for joy
Of knowing that here I am
And there I am
A Scotsman,
And an indigenous person.

And the grit will so irritate
That the tears in each eye
Will make a pearl of it,
And through that eyeball-pearl
I shall see this world for what it is,
And I shall tell you.

Remember the drowned Phoenician Sailor.
Those are pearls that were his eyes.