Fearless

          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.

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.

Tim Seibles, “Fearless” from Buffalo Head Solos. All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of the poet.