New Poem.

In meditation to starve
my greatest fever, I

realize suddenly
what folly this is

and lift my head from 
pose to say: not

for nothing is there
such fever. Not for nothing

do we let a little of it in
to raise us to just under

boiling point — a small
concession but

with that concession
comes relief from full fever,

relief I never found before this
when I denied that fever existed,

or by claiming that
it could be forgotten

by rejecting outright our true need
for at least a little bit of such heat.

I return to meditation
more easily now that I have

told this truth.  I am calmed,
whole, sated, and safe

knowing that full denial
of an appetite for what is natural

is neither my continued aim
nor my future false hope.