Rooted In Green

 

Due to severe drought,, the higher cost of water

and lawn maintenance, the board  recommends

that all grass be ripped out and replaced with rock,

soil and plants native to the area,.

                                               Letter From The Housing Association.

 

 

Half sick of  shadows

on stone and sand, the lack of boxwood leaves

and vine -- I wake

                                from a dream

 

leaning toward the window. There is still grass

outside. The wind plucks it

like a green zither. Its blades vibrate with bee, cricket

and most lithely --- that Amherst  belle

wandering the song in a white dress,

her hair loose, the hair pins in her palm

like dashes waiting to be dispersed.

.

 Fragment an idea. shatter resolve

 into corners, rush together

what seems unrelated but really is.

 

These are her ways

of  emerging from a poem's rib

breathing erratically

                                 into truth.

 

And so, I should say to those

who would bald our lawns

and turn them into rough

plots of rock, dirt and cactus ,

 

it's a way to save water --

levitate  dust, lower the cost

of landscaping -- and leave any

coolness-of -place -- or mind

in peril of losing

their incarnation. More intangible --

                                                  than myth.
__________________________________________
 

Note -- "The Amherst Belle" is an allusion to 19th Century poet, Emily Dickinson. She was given this title firstby playwright, William Luce.

 



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