The Earth Turns South/Like Calls to Like

by Clement Richardson Wood

LIKE CALLS TO LIKE

For Howard Dietz

Like calls to like; the high stars sing for me,
 The harsh rude breezes speak to me alone;
I hear the voices of the hill and sea;
 I talk with them, in language all our own.

Over the fields of heaven the stars are sown,
 Vast shining ones, who fling their melody
To those whose ears can catch the brave clear tone—
 Like calls to like; the high stars sing for me.

Stirred by the whirling stars, wild-tongued and free,
 The winds out of the far sky-realms are blown,
Chanting their boisterous rebel litany;
 The harsh rude breezes speak to me alone.

And as they pass, voices of clod and stone
 Come humbly; and of meadows, where the bee
Hums, and the toadstool lifts its tiny throne;
 I hear the voices of the hill and sea.

I greet, and take the greeting, of the tree;
And men—the eager child, the shriveled crone,
All of the vari-tongued humanity,
 I talk with them, in language all our own.

Flesh of their flesh am I, bone of their bone,—
 Blood brother to them all eternally.
All things are one with me, and we are grown
 One in our speech, our sadness, our high glee.
Like calls to like.