For Moombi

Good to see the green world

undiscouraged, the green fire

bounding back every spring, and beyond

the tyranny of thumbs, the weeds

and other co-conspiring green genes

ganging up, breaking in, despite

small shears and kill-mowers,

ground gougers, seed-eaters.

Here they come, sudden as graffiti

not there and then there—

naked, unhumble, unrequitedly green—

growing as if they would be trees

on any unmanned patch of earth,

any sidewalk cracked, crooning

between ties on lonesome railroad tracks.

And moss, the shyest green citizen

anywhere, tiptoeing the trunk

in the damp shade of an oak.

Photo credit: LC-USF34-040609-D. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection. Photo by Jack Delano.

Clear a quick swatch of dirt

and come back sooner than later

to find the green friends moved in:

their pitched tents, the first bright

leaves hitched to the sun, new roots

tuning the subterranean flavors,

chlorophyll setting a feast of light.

Is it possible to be so glad?

The shoots rising in spite of every plot

against them. Every chemical stupidity,

every burned field, every better

home & garden finally overrun

by the green will, the green greenness

of green things growing greener.

The mad Earth publishing

Her many million murmuring

unsaids. Look

how the shade pours

from the big branches—the ground,

the good ground, pubic

and sweet. The trees—who

are they? Their stillness, that

long silence, the never

running away.

23.

Fearless