> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.merionwest.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# The Things of Nature
- URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-things-of-nature/
- Published: 2026-08-26T12:15:39.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-26T17:20:35.000Z
- Description: Gary Keenan
- Author: MW Editors
- Tags: Poetry, Arts

> *And up from the ocean stream*

> *And down from heaven far*

> *The rays that blend in dream*

> *The abysm and the star.*

> 

> *Herman Melville,* “The Haglets”

> 

> 

> We were born apart in blood and tears

> Gasping for a name, a word, a sign

> 

> Blinking back at us from passing stars

> To light a path back to the dark earth

> Slowly crawling over itself, folding

> 

> Over the fire at the heart of all things,

> This world the womb and tomb of time

> A mind measures as it becomes one

> And not another—something of the sea

> Coughed out of cold depths, impossible

> 

> Anywhere else, and even here unlikely,

> Unloved, unable to do much but be beautiful

> And patient for a while: coming together

> In so many separate currents, thrashing

> Toward a moment of silence and resolve

> Naked in its implacable grief, that none

> Should follow without knowing no one

> 

> Lasts alone for long; one sip, wet lips

> Staining the skin with quivering cold,

> Until a hand reaches out for rescue

> And grasps at rain in rage and desperation

> For some angelic alter ego, a puppet perhaps

> But no less divine than real, however private

> That must remain behind the veil of phonemes

> Spit from the twisted instructions cased

> In flesh—to be content in this condition,

> 

> To know it means nothing but its making,

> Missing where memory leaves a darker mark. 

### Gary Keenan lives in Tunia, Cauca, a village of eighteen hundred in the Colombian Andes. His poems have been published in the United States, Ireland, England, Denmark, Germany, India and Australia since 1979\. His book [*Rotary Devotion*](https://fordhampress.com/rotary-devotion-pb.html?ref=merionwest.com) won the 2016 Poets Out Loud Award and is available from [Fordham University Press](https://fordhampress.com/?ref=merionwest.com).