yesterday:
the spatter of loose green,
a green watered with yellow,
a green not rising from its bed
of winter twig. Today,
the bark is thrown back.
All the gay skirts rise
in their ruffles, vibrant
in their ruffles, painting
all that is
with thick
beginning.
Behind me, time is the eternal other
tree, the stumps and the cones, lost
seeds and found ones, and so far,
so far, the promise of rain
no more than a low grumble, subtle
as a chorus of hymn singers
in a closed white church
on a green slope
in another state.
I can’t see them, but I know
their leaves are the coins
slipped through the slot
of this piggy earth,
like love
slipped with a knot
that worries a hole
in the heart.
But what is lost
isn’t truly –
little hats perk the ground
like gnomes wearing browns;
my wild onions throw a stalk
out from the bulb down under,
blue-purple stars erupt at the end of an arc;
the air, always surprised by garnet earth’s
good breath, inhales
and there is that small shudder,
skin rising, as if an opening note from an aria by Verdi
tickles the hairs of being.
I empty pails of green to the page,
and the flow fills this heart.
The sky is alabaster and waiting
for the church of rain
to pour. We are seed today.
My coffee is strong and good.
We are song, me and my beans,
my seeds, my cones –
and we sing.
We sing.
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