Bury your mistakes with me:
like true forgiveness, I am there
before you make them.
Bury, too, your hopes with me:
as promised, I have nursed the seed
and raised a plenitude, over again...
Lay down with me and shower
in the high lights of the night.
Lay down with me and breathe
the warm, yellow sea: it shall wash
away your wounds and anxious ‘seeking-afters’...
For what’s yours will always
come to you; as I am yours.
I have come with wheat and irises.
I have grafted (as your fruit trees are)
bone upon your children’s bone.
Aswell, like ash about the roots,
I welcome back what remains
when you return to me;
for I am yours, and there are we.
Upon my fingers slight, has stood
the balance of beasts; of flocks across
the undulating pulse of days:
and in them have I galloped.
In them I have bridged the river banks.
In them I have spiralled also, to the dust.
And to the wind go I, and flourish there...
The circled weave I am, aswell,
which buoy the brooding bird.
The winter hay. The summer shade of thatch above.
Mansions must I also make
below where the low lights gleam
beneath your dignity.
So, too, the steps that first you dared:
I was there to push you up;
and when you fell I understood.
For I am yours, and there are we.
Lay down with me, and breathe.
.
Authors note:
A response to Mary Oliver’s poem, “Some Question You Might Ask”.
I thought of trying to write about, not if grass had a soul or not, but how could it be identified under the presumption that it does.
I added an extra challenge of writing about grass without using the word ‘green’.
Some Questions You Might Ask
(by Mary Oliver)
Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Who has it, and who doesn’t?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?
