Looking back

What would you have to say
If I was you and you were me
About the way my life is
And how things seem to be?

The green
The greens
The many, many greens

The leaves
The stalks
The many, many blades

The soft
The gentle
The silken, silken touch

The jewels
The glistening
The shiny round drops

But you would miss my very being
The very aspect that separates me from you

For I am happy
To spread my roots
To stretch my leaves
As far and wide as I may reach

To grow when strong, and die when weak
To be crushed, to spring back up
To be chopped, to be cut
To be ripped clean out of the earth

I don’t need the dewy morning
To paint my tips with glistening jewels
To sparkle in the early morning sun
To catch the eye of a poet’s heart

I am happy for my position close to the earth
While it lasts, without need to cling
For from the earth I might seem to come, to you
And to the earth I might seem to return, to you

But from where I am
There is no I, there is no earth
These very things you like to call I and Earth
Are but one and the same

In fact I could say the same of you
But then again you wouldn’t see
For I have no words to give, to take
And that is the difference between you and me


[12 April 2006]