Into the Green Lands

I took a trip into the Green lands

the wet lands, full of water
and dirt that isn't salted dead
I didn't want it to be a vacation
not a trip at all

transplant myself like some great tree,
with branches high into the sky,
fingers negotiating interlaced places amongst the other trees.
And I thought that I would sink my roots deep into soft wet earth,
drinking deep after such long drought.
Feeling earthworms feeding on the leaves that fell at my feet,
birds on my limbs, singing to each other.

I must have come from beside the road of some ugly desert
where the salt stunts roots and branches,
so it's hard to ever grow again.
Somehow condemned to be a spiny shrub,
I fear to be confined to a pot,
rarely watered by the kindness of others.

So I walk outside as often as I can, trying to drink,
and stand beside the other people:
trees, their lives too full for the likes of me,
branches already well-intertwined.
Small beside these great green People,
so aware of all the bitter salt wrapped up in my tissues.
If I let it out it poisons the soil,
the trees step back and look at me with condemning eyes.

I took a trip to the Green lands,
knowing only how to hold fast,
frozen in fear of my potential
for destruction, and hope of love
gaining satisfaction secondhand, watching trees

trying to learn how they drink

It is beautiful enough to see that trees are green and soil is deep.
It is kind enough to know that water falls from unreluctant skies.
No matter how much I may wither,
I refuse to be a desert creature anymore.

7 May 2010