TEACH TEMPERANCE (FOR COLIC)

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Feed the baby breast milk with one drop
of kerosene or one drop of asafetida in it*
If the baby still fusses I will check his soul’s balance
since he may be too new for refined oils.
Perhaps crude would be better, laying him down
in the derrick fields, showing him how we take,
how we fill our horizons full of flags.

In time his cries will diminish, having resigned
his soul to end at the edges of his body.
But I want him to stretch beyond his skin,
find the milk of grace bubbling up invisibly
from all fields everywhere. I want his lamp full,
for him to light the wick, to lead us from this cave,
march us with no guile out into the sun.

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*The Foxfire Book, p. 235