The Green Going On

The morning clouds part, an entire sky opens
But for one distant circle you could reeve
With a thick hank like a beanstalk,

To climb as far as the membrane
Allows, an arm pushing through a sleeve
Of air, darkling your hulk.

Seeming so weightless, even
When you look down, that you believe
You can only belong to the chalk

Dust vapor of these heavens,
Losing the earth, you cannot conceive
Of a body ever having such bulk,

When you tunnel a mountain
Of clouds, patulous, peaked in waves,
To immerse yourself in the talc

Fine mist of the uncertain;
You must forget most everything you've
Known: the fields folded with husks

Of hope, the unforgiven,
And those whose hands you still grieve,
Forget the fires, the woodsmoke,

The reticence of the bittern,
And waters shimmering to prove
Life moves with the soft double-talk

Of leaves each autumn,
As you have only yourself, silent, alive,
And that green going on below, ghostlike.

Copyright © 2004 Larry Bradley All rights reserved
from Southwest Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission