A Deeper Green

Returning in my mind's eye to the Dell Brook in Heath, Massachusetts

You come around the path’s bend

and there you are, in the same spot.

The birches still hover over quickened water,

the ferns are just as deep,

the speckled green still dazzles.

Rocks old as this earth’s present conformation

show the blotches of flaked lichens.

A sapling, new since last you were here,

bends over the creek as if to drink.

Your eyes are old to this,

old as a newborn’s clear, calm contemplation,

consideration of things known in a different kingdom

of which this is one spur.

Home.

In sight, in scent, in hearing,

In the tick of your pulse, the cool draw of air

Into your lungs.

Time stretches, bends,

extends, droops like stretched putty, parabolic down.

You bring your mind’s hands together palm to palm, holding

between them then and now and when will come: what you have been,

the dust will you return to, all in this one moment

in which glows present eternity, a gentle blazing.

Nothing that comes can take away from you

what you know now, what you have always known:

that this foretells a deeper green to come.

Reviews

[Carlos Lorenzo Estrada]

I love the imagery in your poem. It's so visceral and well painted. Visible to the minds eye. Then the switch in narrative in the second half reflected from nature to time and eventual evolution. It conveys so much thought and emotion. Thank you for sharing your work.