LETTERS FROM A CORN FIELD
Poetry by
Blake Steele
(opened 1/20/96
INDEX
A...
AFTER A BRIEF, LOVING ENCOUNTER
ANOTHER LETTER TO THE UNKNOWN LILLY
A
SONG ACROSS TIME
C...
CHRIST'S SHOES
D...
DAY WATCH (The fourth of July)
F...
FORSAKEN BY THE WHITE--ABANDONED BY THE
RED
FREEDOM IS A CHOICE WE MAKE
TO LIVE INTO THE FREE ONE
G...
GOD GOES WHISTLING
H...
HER ABSENCE
HOLDING ME YOUNG
I...
IF I SHOULD FIND MY CRYSTAL LADY
IMPRESSIONS FROM ANDREI RUBLEV
(15th century Russian Icon Painter)
I PRAY FOR THIS WOMAN
IT TAKES COURAGE TO GROW
I
WANT TO WALK WITH YOU WHERE
I WAS A CHILD
J...
JUST LET ME DANCE WHERE THE AIR IS GOLDEN
L...
LILLY'S SHADOW
M...
MEDITATIONS ON BEING A MAN
MISSING HER
MORTAL AND CARED FOR
MY SILKIE
N...
NIGHT LONGINGS
P...
PASSING THOUGHTS AND PEOPLE
PONDERING MY RETIREMENT
R...
RECOUNTING
SONG ON A GRAY DAY
S...
SINGING FROM YOUR PRESENCE
TO YOUR UNSEEN BODY
T...
THE GROWING WAY DIMINISHED
THE HISTORY OF THAT PARABLE COIN
THAT HAS CONFOUNDED MANY
THERAPY FOR A MAD KING
THIS MISUNDERSTOOD LONGING
THOUGHTS IN A SLEEPLESS NIGHT
THOUGHTS IN A WINTER'S NIGHT
TO A CERTAIN, UNKNOWN LADY
TO A CORNFIELD
TO
PASSIONATELY LOVE A WOMAN
W...
WHILE ENJOYING THE SENSE OF HER
WORDS TO CLOTHE NAKED EMOTION
LAST POEM IN FILE: MY SILKIE
THE POEMS:
THERAPY FOR A MAD KING
A mad king
sat
in a summer field
of cut straw.
Straw dust
whirled around him.
He was reading poems
from an old book.
Memories moved within him:
the smell of roasting partridges;
corn fields chocked full
of pheasants;
blue sky rumpled with
clouds;
the songs of young women;
a hopeful look
in a boy's eyes;
the carefree companionship
of
a dog;
the sound of cows lowing in the hills
and geese cries falling from
morning skies--
these things were returning a mad king
to his human soul,
through the words of poets
and the power of earth
around him.
FORSAKEN BY THE WHITE--
ABANDONED BY THE RED
It is from this pilgrim acheÑ
the incurable wound
of a native arrow
in
the side of an arrogant
white manÑ
that the blood and water
flows
to nourish
the new vision
of a new world.
All my soul cries out
for the miracle balm
of common herb grasses
that will heal--
but a crazy medicine man says, no.
And so an exile
wanders
outside the cities,
far from every comforting town,
lost in bleak wilderness
in a strange, forbidden place
befriended only by wolves
and rogue madmen
who spout
eccentricies
to the wind
and dribble their spittle
in leaves.
THOUGHTS IN A SLEEPLESS NIGHT
Tonight there is sunshine in my bones
and moonlight in my belly--
tonight all the voices of the forest
sing in my voice
for I am God's child!
The blood of Christ is upon me,
spattering upon the roof
of my soul like rain.
There is a golden silence
brimming in the deep well of me;
a silver light in the water
shimmers
me with silence...
It is God's voice.
He says,
"Tonight there is sunshine in my bones
and moonlight in my belly--
tonight all the voices of the forest
sing in my voice,
for I am a child
and you are a child...
Let us love each other!"
WORDS TO CLOTHE NAKED EMOTION
O that I might write words
young lovers long to say,
that body might touch body
wreathed in holy emotions:
words
that light the mind's flame
fed by the oils of youth's passions;
words that infuse meaning
into each touch,
each fleeting glance,
as mind and body
do a spirit dance
of poetry's music
coursing through the veins...
until dark falls,
and the magic wanes.
RECOUNTING SONG ON A GRAY DAY
Silent.
No birds.
The apple tree
outside my window
is as naked of song
as it is of leaves
for I have not fed
those wild little
sky creatures
who are in
some another place
this gray day.
Likewise, the lilac stands bare
of
birds,
holding up its thin young arms
and countless fingers
in anticipation.
But my quiet companions
are
patient,
at rest with their secrets
and silently savoring this:
that I have loved them
and celebrated them
in a semblance
of song.
*
Suddenly,
one bird
appears.
THOUGHTS IN A WINTER'S NIGHT
How long then,
how long shall it be
until I return again
to the angels and the animals,
to the wind whistling
through a straw roof,
and the yellow light of heath fire
in night's shadows?
The sea gulls are crying
for
the darkness of my soul.
The mackerel jump
around the small fragile ship
that rocks the magical child
of me
in the gold light
of my imagination.
This is the dream-land
moving through me,
full of ancient voices,
where sea stones
speak
of sad-eyed seals,
and within thick, white walls
mother's warm milk
dribbling from softness
wets the lips
of the next generation.
This is heartland
that grows tender things:
young bean leafs in kitchen gardens,
rose petals
and golden haired girls,
lambs and black-eyed shepherd boys.
This is the slow hand,
the slow mind that feels old stories
in a piece of driftwood,
that braids horse hair entwined with sea shells
to make heirlooms for children.
This is where the old roots weave
and tendrils are braided
through colorful stones
for the sake of birds
and new buds on slim branches.
Poetry befits this life I love,
I long for,
from the deep core,
where
my being mingles with yours
in remembrances
of where we have come from
and what we are seeking.
IMPRESSIONS FROM
ANDREI RUBLEV
(15th century Russian
Icon Painter)
There are times when
the human soul best sings through the eyes
of the mad, those whose hearts drift like a cloud of milk in
a swift
stream. When evil
incarnates in human form, great is the suffering
of the innocents;
great the purgation as complacency burns like
frilly lace in a
charred chapel. Is soul best forged like a great
silver bell?: molten
metals flowing from furnaces of affliction into
the narrow neck of a
rough clay mold...
I know that only faith shapes lasting things.
And why should joyous
spring winds fiercely fan furnace fires if they
too did not dream of
beautiful things; if they did not long to carry
clear bell tones,
like ecstatic bird song, over desolate ridges into
the ears of young
woman?
The haunted eyes of a
silent monk who has seen too much suffering:
the cries of an
insane woman who cannot face the torrents of black
water coursing
through her dreams; the tongue of a harsh bishop
which cuts throats
like a horseman's saber; tears in the eyes of a
stone-faced mother;
white horses foraging for grass around the
bodies of dead
children: these are images from our roots, these are
the impetuses of repentance.
After years of
laboring in a vow of silence an old monk, who once
painted beauty on
white chapel walls, whispered these words to a
blind man in a snow
storm: "My brother, this world is the perfect
place for us to learn
compassion."
To pursue the wind is
folly. Riches melt away like snow. We must
forge beautiful bells
and ring them.
JUST LET ME DANCE WHERE THE AIR IS GOLDEN
Just let me dance
where the air is golden with wheat dust
and lamp light at night
shines yellow on straw
whirling in the air
because of the feet of dancing folk:
those whose hands are calloused thick
from hours of gripping the hoe,
scythe, and the home broom--
whose fingers are strong
from
squeezing a cow's udder.
That's where I might best
write poems clear enough
to endure
for the unborn to read:
words about the mystery
and value of every soul,
and the wonder of the world,
and how love opens the heart
through awe
to build a new millennium.
TO A CORNFIELD
It is a cornfield, only, green popping
its silent singing towards the gold of it;
ears as deaf to man's world as Beethoven's.
The whole field composed, like a symphony.
The little woods full of wind around it,
with trumpet vines curled beneath,
the bass in the pond of it
play to the
field's relief.
And a rich necklace of pearls
falls from a farm matron's gown,
into the thick ooze of it
to where pearl divers from India
come for
wild wallowing,
carefully skirting the fat feet
of elephants: the small-eared kind,
not like the dreams of this corn stalk,
nor the ambitions of countless cobs.
And with the elephants are always monkeys...
swinging in banyan trees
which circle the field like pillars
heralding a great performance hall,
while stars glitter over it all
like a majestical choir,
until the silent weight of their song
spirals down as small tornadoes
of stars into silver buckets:
each fixed at the base of a corn stalk.
Buckets of stars!--
radiant with roots--
to reflect to itself and God
each stalk
so it can cease fiddling and grow
until all old bows are
straight,
and the fruit so fluted and full
that the folks enlist
to picka the high and picka the lows.
A poet must not harp on things,
so
while they cord the ears and man da lines,
with this word I will note and atone my faults:
"The birds are its applause."
It is a cornfield, only,
the whole poem conducted
of connotations.
CHRIST'S SHOES
I need to go out and come back
and write the language of love.
Christ can come down
if we dream Him to
and put funny little shoes
on our feet made of
carbuncles and wheat grass.
With these shoes
we
can walk in two worlds.
Yesterday I lost the right one
and hobbled blind in this world
until I stumbled back upon my shoe;
today the left one fell off
and I got lost in paradise.
Sometimes I lose both of them,
and then who am I?
MEDITATIONS ON BEING A MAN
To be a man
you can't be all bird wings.
It takes something heavy
in the soul,
something dark and sorrowful,
like you find in an
angry horse
or in the body of a buzzard.
It takes twisted roots
running down from the head
into the thick earth
of the
loins.
I've seen men:
an old fisherman in Greece
whose hands were like burnt flapjacks;
a bean farmer in Mexico
who, by candlelight every night,
played guitar with thick calloused fingers
and sang in falsetto like a bird
for his children;
a shepherd in southern France
who smoked his worn pipe
and tapped stones with his staff
as he walked calmly before a hundred sheep,
not looking back.
Earth had etched gullies
in their faces;
the open sky had opened their eyes.
Having passed naked
through a thousand squalls
had birthed in them
the right to soar and dream...
I swear, only women
and horses
can match the beauty
of God
shining through
the rough, earthen face
of a peasant man.
ANOTHER
LETTER TO THE UNKNOWN LILLY
I hear your eyes
are as blue as certain pools hidden in the
mountains of
Southern Russia, where old men drink blue vodka and
dance on
their toes, where old women still card wool and young
women loose
their long hair that the cold northern winds might
fan it out
to weave around them.
I hear there
is a door in the bottom of your soul, and that
sometimes
you so gather yourself that you might drop back
through to
stand naked in silver fountains where you sing to
gathering
birds and other angels.
I hear that
your hair is as yellow as wheat in the black hills
of the
Dakotas and that your soul has two rooms, one gold as
your hair
and one black as velvet on a casket. I've been told
that when
you pass from the gold room into the black you carry
two luminous
pearls in your right hand and that when you pass
from the
black to the gold you carry two ebony seeds in your
left.
I wonder
what you would do if God asked you to leave the world
and tend
sheep in the Pyrenees until stars dropped from the
skies so
that you might learn the holy language of birds and
sheep,
brooks and breezes until you might, at last, as winter
turns your
summer gold white, write one poem that would live
forever in
the hearts of mankind?
And what if
Christ just once, and ever so briefly, touched the
free, soft
places of your core with his fingers of fire and
caught your
eyes with His in an eternal embrace? Would you then
run away
from your beloved wild birds and deer down to
orphanages,
death houses, and other holy churches of encounter
just to gaze
at His eyes once more in theirs?
TO A CERTAIN, UNKNOWN LADY
There is a delicate transparency
(like certain
gossamer places
on white feathers)
that only rare, honest souls acquire;
through which the spirit shines
spontaneously and without
self
reference.
Who can cast pearls in the street;
who shall find sapphires
shining everywhere in the park?:
a blameless heart;
a
forgiven soul.
Amidst a million people
there is but one
from which peace flows
effortlessly
for eyes to drink.
LILLY'S SHADOW
Lilly's shadow
rolled out of my heart
like a black pearl
into my hands.
It was the ache
of her not being here.
It was all my need
to pour love into love
for love,
and God,
and my beloved's blessedness.
It was the tight, personal pain
of being unknown, uncherished
by a woman's full, spiritually
sexual love.
It was the ache of a great love
hovering above me
in need of pouring forth love
from the Other
to the other.
It was a small,
dark
essence
of grief.
My Lord of shining clouds
came and bid me roll
the pearl carefully
off my fingertips
into
His palms.
And so, this grief too
shall bind me
to His light:
another sacrifice
amidst the mysteries
of
love.
HER ABSENCE
This shadow of grief
is someone's shadow--
someone who isn't here!
Her absence is the palatable
darkness of my grief.
MISSING HER
God only knows
who has cast her shadow
for so long
upon my soul.
PASSING THOUGHTS AND PEOPLE
She floated in a soft cloud,
soft as the ice cream cone
in her hand
which she slowly,
carefully,
licked...
She was all pink and gold,
like early dawn
easing down the street.
I had everything
to give her
she ever really wanted,
but my pockets were empty,
and how was she to know?
Such is the audacious
presumption
of a man such as I,
a poor, poet of love.
She got into her 4 wheel drive
aristocratic carriage car
parked in
front
of my peasant VW cart.
She had everything to give me,
I ever really wanted...
but her pockets were full,
and how was I to know?
IT TAKES COURAGE TO GROW
I am deciding something
of great importance.
Matters of the heart are fearful
like lion's eyes,
like wild flowers underfoot.
Passions spilled out
make flames,
weld soul to living soul
if they are alive.
When pools are clear
colored stones may be tossed into them
and retrieved at will...
*
A young girl must break black mirrors
to see the sun.
Yet, there is always the danger of blood
in flying glass.
A broken boy must fall away:
a thick limbed man alone
can climb these mountains.
Yet, there are always dangers of avalanche
up where the sky is huge
and vision unobscured.
When
two souls give love's gifts
that breadth of chest might expand
and gold hair grow soft and long,
something smiles on them
from the shadows of stones,
and the light of streams.
It takes the courage of trust
to grow.
AFTER A BRIEF, LOVING ENCOUNTER
(and a sudden
reversal)
I have witnessed tenderness incarnate
in a feather soft, forest-eyed woman
who moves like silk in a breeze...
Her
eyes open
to let God's youth flow through
as love's freshness.
Before today
I never knew green eyes
could hold such brightness,
(sun light and dew amongst the leaves).
Her smile is both shy
and welcoming.
There is a hint of gray about her,
like a fall morning's mist...
I have glimpsed sunshine in her foot prints.
She seems like some country's Princess
waiting to hear she is Christopher Columbus
and that there are new worlds.
I would say
she has both known
the rose breath of the holy,
and night-pain
of a confused and misguided
world.
I would say
her heart has been waiting
to love someone
to its greatest depths,
and be loved
as flowers love the bees
...always.
TO PASSIONATELY LOVE A WOMAN
To passionately love a woman,
--body, soul, and spirit--
as a poet, as a spiritual man...
as a man.
To love her until mercury light
spills like the moon
out of her eyes:
to love her
until that joyous child
in the core of her
breaks all bonds and is free!
To love her and lap her up
without shame
and thus enlarge her being
as light eats dark,
and dark licks up light.
And as her freedom
wrestles free
--breaking hard, heart-husks
until a wise child sings--
liquid gold
will spill sunlight
through her soul,
out her eyes,
upon a man:
a singer of wind-song,
a writer of water-words,
who body, soul and spirit
passionately loves
this woman.
HOLDING
ME YOUNG
There is an island
that holds me young
in its ancient memories.
It still rocks me
as a child
in rosy pines
high on white cliffs
above the blue waters
of my dreams.
At night
the island moves
somewhere
upon a sea of stars.
Perhaps it sails
around the shadows
of the world
until it sinks
in vast gold seas
of the sun.
Or perhaps
it has sailed small
and hidden
in some woman's
green eyes
until she opens them
in love
upon me.
GOD GOES WHISTLING
God is always whispering
words of promise
upon the boundless rivers
of His breath.
New things,
honey-dew sweet things,
cold wind in the pines
fresh things:
but we have forgotten
about listening!
As children,
our whole bodies listened.
We
were like sunflowers
hearing sunlight
seep with gold laughter
into every black seed.
In imagination
we stood between two worlds,
and listened with four ears.
Now we have business
that leads us far from His light.
And in the marketplace of grief
we are selling our ears,
trading them for empty
shells of things,
while God goes whistling
through the kernel.
*
Now mindless
monkeys chatter
into our captive ears:
"Where are your shells?
Hold tight to the shell
or you might be naked and seen!"
*
An old prophet once said
that bad spells can only be broken
by deep listening.
Listen! Listen...
until monkey chatter wearies
and monkeys scamper up
invisible trees
to melt into silence
amidst silver leaves.
Then we shall hear
a
whisper of dreams...
and glimpse
the golden astonishments
of God!
MORTAL AND CARED FOR
(A Song For Pio's Hat)
Stars live in the fierce law of their own fire.
No one can eat fire
or crown themselves with star light.
But stars fill the heads of grain with gold
and make straw which also dimly shines
when woven into hats.
FREEDOM IS A CHOICE WE MAKE
TO LIVE INTO THE FREE ONE
I want a freedom that is so great
there are no more painful longings.
What can a candle which slowly
eats its own scalding wax
add to the sun?
How can a
person
add to or take from my being
the light that shines
freely?
By assent alone!
Blessed are those light-born beings
who shine light upon light
through eyes.
And blessed are the holy deeds
of mitzvah.
Yet, apart from all people,
the light always
spills
upon a clear mirror
for my inner eyes to see
when they see.
I PRAY FOR THIS WOMAN
I
pray for this woman
that her beauty
may return to You,
a drop of clean rain water
falling into a clear pool;
a fragrant rose
falling unto
the fragrant earth.
May she think of You
as lover thinks always
of lover
and whisper, "My Beloved,"
in the garden of her heart
which is Yours:
and You her sunshine;
You her rain and wind.
So shall the sun
turn
twofold and green
and arise in her overflowing
eyes.
So shall the white moon
shine serenely in her
slow and sensitive smile.
WHILE ENJOYING THE SENSE OF HER
Why is it that I see
the ancient forests
of France
in her eyes,
and all the round green world
unfolding?
Why is it that a hunting party
rides with hounds invisibly
around her
and
I feel she always walks
where ladies
dip their bodies
in peaceful green rivers?
And why do I know
her as a brother
knows his little sister,
and feel her smile
like familiar light
in a sweet eternal
remembrance within...
though she has
forgotten me?
SINGING FROM YOUR PRESENCE TO YOUR UNSEEN BODY
You hide from me in a certain place
between my soul and its shadow.
You have fooled me a
thousand times,
flashing your flares out of the eyes
of woman who did not contain the free mind
that you alone hold in your body
like a beautiful vase contains
a liquidity of sun beams.
(It's your rainbow that illusively spills out
upon my white table.)
*
You visit me like wind visits a forest grove
of young aspens.
My heart shivers... as in my mind a soft sea foam
splashes.
Your light enters my succulent core
and I feel a slow ecstasy of sky
drawn through me.
Why do you taunt me so, and why wait?
Are you so busy in high meadows
teaching bees how to love flowers
with their bodies
that
you can not come? Or is the way too far?
Then why not ride the beams
of my prayers for you
back through the heart of a dark star
that you might spill out
through
the fabric of the Universe,
before me,
panting in flesh?
A SONG ACROSS TIME
You wash your ribbons
in
a cold stream.
The water flowers out
your white shift
like a cloud of milk.
Red and yellow birds
sing
in trees
above your head...
up near the wind.
I speak softly to you
in the voice of waters.
"I would give
you one
carnation
if you would give unto me
your three roses."
You hear, and remember me,
though you have
never seen my face.
From your heart
light arises unto your lips.
You sing a prayer of love
and loose it
upon the sky
hoping I am listening
to the wind.
THIS MISUNDERSTOOD LONGING
Like the red beginnings
of
a day,
like the soft bed of roses
the sun rests down into over the blue sea,
so love for you
unfolded, grew,
arose within me,
made my hands shine
with a certain ruddiness
none could see
but only you
in
your loving dreams.
I call out your name
every day into prayer's winds.
You hear my voice
like a distant birth pang,
like
a loneliness,
unfathomable and dark,
like a deep coal mine
in your belly.
*
We love
each other,
you and I,
as truly
as we don't know
each other.
THE HISTORY OF THAT PARABLE COIN
THAT HAS CONFOUNDED MANY
Christ took a golden coin
out of a fish's mouth
and held it in His hand
for
nearly 2,000 years
so that He might
place it boldly
into the center of my heart
when the time
was ripe for it.
Now I shall never want
for any form
of riches,
being the heir
of Christ
and
His
magical
fish.
IF I SHOULD FIND MY CRYSTAL LADY
If I should find my love,
my lady,
we would jump on a little
hand painted boat,
(all blue and white,
its wood shallaced to a shine),
and sail to
distant land
of peasant kings
and barefooted children
who walk as lords
with wide eyes
over wild savannas.
And there, we would love
the fluid Spirit
moving through each other
to open our hearts
until we felt the leaves
drinking sunlight,
while our water songs
and poems of starlight
cheered the sad face
of the moon.
And
when love impelled us,
we would return
to the darkness of this land
balancing mirrors
on our fingertips--
the radiant reflections
of our dreams.
And the crystal mirror
of my lady
(in which she sees angels
and
the luminous faces
hidden within faces...)
I would never
be afraid of darkening
or breaking--
for
a thousand times
her love has broken it
that her feet might feel
rough earth and thorns,
her hands run over
the sad eyes
of brain-damaged boys.
THE GROWING WAY DIMINISHED
Sometimes,
Christ's road shines
as
if it were made of ribbons
of the moon,
or a river of sun.
But when a cloud
of old heart-matter
drifts
in, gray
and angry,
the road
might dim
into
black words
scattered around
old church
buildings.
DAY WATCH
(The fourth of July)
The vibrant web of life
is full of cold dreams
and rancorous noise.
I see death
dulling too many faces
as I watch for your face:
the passionate dream
of your eyes,
the delicate fragrances
of cherries and apples
upon your lips.
Your shadow passing over me
is my ache.
Your feminine substance
my fuller liberation.
Silver rain, splashing through
the vibrant web of life,
carries black silt
into my heart,
and seeds pour down
in a grace of gold sunshine:
Dust, sand, wandering streams,
the vagrant, gypsy winds.
You will come one day
with
melons in your arms
and prance with bare feet
through the young flowers
of my heart.
NIGHT LONGINGS
Wandering
the streets here,
I can't find you.
I think you must be hiding
somewhere amongst
a thousand wild islands of lush herbs,
of goats and birds.
By night you travel
to pound your heart inside my ribs.
Sleep is a black flame
that burns holes in
the universe
to let you slip through.
Your pure motion colors dreams,
your lines are mimicked
by grapes and lilies.
How can I find the door
unto you
which our shadows have closed?
Should I knock on a stone,
or starlight,
or on the face of a flower?
And who owns the key
of questions
only the wind
can answer?
PONDERING
MY RETIREMENT
When I am old
I want to be an artist
who buries his fiery body
in color
in
the way a black mole
snuggles into mud.
I want to hunt for
green leaves in paint,
and burn canvass
with
vermilion flame.
I want to splash a sky
with those roses
that birth the sun
day by day
and throw
golden hair
over your face
with a huge sweep
of brush.
I would paint your eyes
blue
with
my toes
and your shimmering smile
with a glob of paint
on my chin.
We shall laugh
in color,
you and I,
and run down
empty streets at night
leaving wet footprints
on the sides of walls.
I WANT TO WALK WITH YOU
WHERE I WAS A CHILD
I want to walk with you
in an autumnal mist
along
the sea,
on the shores
of my childhood
where I played in innocence
amongst opali filled pools.
I
dreampt of you then
with an unnamable ache,
being too young to define
my deeper sorrows
or heart-destiny
of
dreams.
As rain passes through
thick clouds that birth it,
so I pass again
the beach inlets and breakers
that
birthed me
with you...
and love not only
your eyes, your wet hair,
your skin,
but the slick seaweed
and foam
that flows down the rocks
of La Jolla
in the tides.
MY SILKIE
In
moonless night
a black seal
swims the shadowed sea.
Its huge black eyes
burn like dark flame.
It
is the fire of your shadow
swimming through my heart.
I, the seal hunter
by day, seek your image
in light-filled pools,
empty of all but slim,
silver fish.
My hunger drives me
to lay out my bewildering nets.
The fish dart through.
Only an occasional
muddled turtle
is snared.
By night I mend my nets
with threads spun
of
old poems
and dream of you
in the smoke of my fire.
You watch me with your black eyes
from the dark sea
waiting
for me
to break the spell of the hunt
so that rough, barnacled seal skin
might at last
slip away
from
your pale,
silky skin.