Green

The cars rush by
fat and heavy
with the smooth hiss of tires
on wet pavement
and trucks
downshift on hills
in a grating of gears

between is a field
long-grassed and green
and I can smell the humid richness
even through the window
closed against the rain
can sense the roots reaching down
into some secret heart

(I’ve been reading again. It’s my
day off.)

the anthology
(with Critical Comments)
sits beside me—
on the cover rock climbers
ascend
a cliff
the mottled rock
contrasting nicely
with the leaden sky
while below
the prairie
stretches on in its flatness

it must be a metaphor for poetry
(I think it is)
I can almost see
What the lead climber is getting
but some artless bastard
has placed a bar
code
just above his head

but inside…
inside…

I’m amazed
I’m astounded
I’m depressed

These folks had
It
They saw
Something

together they downed the tree
they lined up to take their whacks
their—

“Whirl up, sea—
Whirl your pointed pines,
Splash your great pines on our rocks,
Hurl your green over us,
Cover us with your pools of fir.”
(Hilda Doolittle)

And the Confessionalists
what
about them?

those lost souls
those bridge-divers
those sacrificial lambs

was something waving
and fluttering
like a flag in kick-the-can?

did they gather themselves
stolid and sure in their unsteadiness
and bravely say “Onward!”
(despite
better instincts)
with fried chicken and a nice vinaigrette
under the seat
in a train
huffing and chuffing over some labored landscape

did they say
ringing clarion clear
(despite the cigarettes)
“This is it! Stop the train!”
and stepped into the green
to a warning—
(“No one ever stops here!”)
but they went
and sent postcards
to us who stayed behind:

“Wish we weren't here.”

Did the coated conductor say
With slow sardonic smile
“Well now—
I wish I could help
you
but you’ve bought
a one-way ticket
nonrefundable
and
in any case
we’ve just gone out of business.”

(that tree—
i’d have a whack
myself
but i’d probably cut
my foot
off.)

never mind
i don’t have the time
my day is almost over
and tomorrow i go to work

i’ll drive through the countryside
feeling the thrum of the engine
through the leather of the seat
the open window a portal
to the earth
as i whir by
smelling this…what?
it’s almost obscene

it does it so brazenly
this new life
anchored in how many centuries
pulling death up through the roots
and exposing it
in its sunsplashed finery
its
Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman was right

it will be green

but how green?

i’ll drive down
the long lane
that leads me to work
the long leafy lane
each vein of each plant a miracle
the separate become the whole
melding together
xylem and phloem
integument and excrement
invertebrate and vertebrate
(“dapple-drawn falcon”)
all arching together
and pointing together toward the light

even the chain-link fence
by the lawn
is a web
and it is green

how green?

i’ll park by the lodge and get out
feeling what i always do
(i’ve been here before)
not here, exactly, but
you know
what
i mean

coolsville, daddy-o

i’ll punch in
and go to work—
but i won’t feel any better

how green?
how green, goddamn it?