Realism
by D. C. Williams

It's good to know
the earth is there,
compact below
the actual air,

its substance kept
immune, opaque,
when I have slept
as when I wake.

The clay commutes
its dark duress
to feed the roots
of consciousness,

and, thought or sensed,
the spirit's act
is shaped against
the stone of fact.

The levers set
by our purpose lock
with a purchase let
in the living rock.

The world's uncouth
old lengths decree
what chains of truth
shall make us free.