Reverie in Green

We are so much water, it is no wonder
even when we have been held all night,
all morning, by a light filled, spacious cabin,
we go outside and follow the wet roar
we heard the night before when we arrived,
somewhere north.

We study downed limbs and crushed, rusted cans
under a young sun to remember the way back, trusting sound
will take us somewhere safely shaded by midday.

And there it is. The lowest place on this limb
of hill, flowing.  We must be like this, willing
to sink into the lowest places, quench them,
make green with our own falling dance through
space, over rocks and mossy beds, past powerless
immersed twigs, useless rudders steering
back and forth in currents, snagging red leaves,
pulling on staunch, still trees.

Oh this green at the edge of wet! It blesses
our bare feet, sends roots around rock, into spongy
soil, clinging, unmoved by gallons of gravity.
Green holds on. Witness of shift and shadow’s icy shine.

Six pointed stars of green. Long waving blades
of green. Bundled sponges of submerged green.
My heart—what is this thing?—a star and blade and sponge.

The roar opens inside, tugs my body downhill,
a thread pulling me through the eye
of a needle of sound, this fabric of falling clearly
down, seeking whatever is barren and crisp, whatever
has roots that have forgotten their throats.

Let me find these roots in you, my love, let me sink
into your loamy triumph, cradle stones of shame, fill
you plump with this that makes us live, this pouring
with which we brim bowls and mouths and parched hearts.
Watch them swell and shoot stars, watch the blades
we’ve pushed through bend like grass, not knives
but long reachings, green swayings toward the roar.