Plant Study

It is time to denounce the weeds
and your proclivity to let them grow
so brightly, without rule, among you.
We must tame this eager carnage of
wild orange and magenta and green
that creeps like blood-watered sky
and bends most unnaturally from
disheveled stout rows—fragrant
bold canticles of untrimmed grace,
fighting for a chance to protrude
against us.

How can you pass and laugh as if nothing
has gone wrong—as if Nature alone
knows the way to halt these problematic
wanderings?  Even now, we pose
in our own disheveled pews
to utter careful gray hymns and
stew about the greens,
as if we have already been
forgiven and that true flowers
will someday forgive us.

                                             tvg, 11-03-09

marsh


                    “To the mind that is still, the world surrenders.”
                                                         -- Taoist saying

blossoms float on silence--
         
          small white heads rooted
         
          in dark water

in determined tranquility
         
          they listen to the wind
         
          whisper silent words
         
          and questions
         
          they answer
         
          on smooth wet

          water like glass

their open faces grin

          at cirrus clouds

          and dragonflies

          at dawn

                                                                                       tvg, 8/8/01