The Land

I think it is good
to taste the land —
to eat the land
and drink the land —
and then, after that,
to consume the land.
Then I think it’s good
to smoke the land.
Who could argue with Melville
about the sea
or the way it resolves the grimness
about the mouth?
But when other parts grow grim
from time alone
it’s the land I seek;
so when someone asks
where it went,
I’ll say, like Bezerra da Silva,
that I already smoked it.