Instructions for Building Straw Huts

By Yusef Komunyakaa

First you must have

unbelievable faith in water,

in women dancing like hands playing harps

for straw to grow stalks of fire.

You must understand the year

that begins with your hands tied

behind your back,

worship of dark totems

weighed down with night birds that shift their weight

& leave holes in the sky. You must know

what's behind the shadow of a treadmill--

its window the moon's reflection

& silent season reaching

into red sunlit hills.

You must know the hard science

of building walls that sway with summer storms.

Locking arms to a frame of air, frame of oak

rooted to ancient ground

where the door's constructed last,

just wide enough for two lovers

to enter on hands & knees.

You must dance

the weaverbird's song

for mending water & light

with straw, earth, mind, bright loom of grain

untortured by bushels of thorns.

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