Green Flame by Daniel Noll

Green Flame

by Daniel Noll

The green flame I was, that singed the eyes

The grassy tongue that sang the heart sunny

Moist shade drifted me down.

Leaf-mantled and lullabied, I laid

Foot-rooted in patient dirt, worm-ridden,

They tried the zeal of my flesh.

"Too soon, too soon".

All and I breathed in Sap and Leaf

And what the wind bore.

Green - domed I oozed

Suckled the dust with my own sap

Sucked in gnats and flies

Took the odor of noon and sooner setting suns

Golden-domed, I was the red flame that shot the eye.

and the twisted fingers offering gifts

And what the soil gave.

I fell rot rigorous.

Long shadowed white-mantled relic,

I slept tired and full of wishes

Quieted and hardened I smelled of darker days

Till the noise of early morning bees

Broke my pace and set my eyes adrift

Flowered and all nubined I woke

To set my pulse to the forests dull throb

And to breezes.

And all the sky, the trees and all

Became my eyes and ears and blur and green

And what the wind bore became me

Time snailed across times terrain

Foggy hours of revelation

Each day its own world created

and never the same world twice

Distance and size where unborn

And the movers had not yet taken to their task.

And dung and sweat and bood and urine

I did my part. Held myself loosely

The unhearing bestower gifted me with unknowing

This unseer put me in front of this mirror of unseeing

This unspeeker with whispers unclear and unspeakable

And black and cold and wet and slime and tart and rough

And dark and dim and calm and hail and echo and silence

And rot and green smell and sharp and all that

And death and birth on each side and all around me.