Virid

Photo-KJ, exactly two years ago -  April 9, 2008:  (zoom lens with concurrent camera twist.)

   Ouichita River Dity
                                        (From a family float trip, 2002)

I have seen the blood of Terra running red,
albeit rare
and more like rust, than crimson,
colored in the rinse of ruddy plains and that strange
Cream-of-Tomato dirt, in Oklahoma.

I’ve seen it too, where her blood runs blue
like mirrors held against a Colorado sky:

But here in Arkansas,
beneath the paddle stoke
the open veins of Terra tumble
in the stuff of our state color:

                  Camo.

Indeed, this is the kingdom of the chloroplast;

Every shade of chlorophyll on God’s green earth
is dripping from the paddle blades, pouring over jaded rocks --
carpeting the hills, exploding like whipped algae
with highlights of celery, or the little
moss on train sets, only big.

Here is the stuff of new-green and old-green,
teen–green and China,
green-tea and burnt-pea,
limon, and lima,
pine-tree and kiwi,
forrest and kelp,
verdant and virile with
spiral of vine –

Oh,
Here is the stuff of
leaf blade
and night shade,
grass snakes, and hoppers,
ten-thousand lawns and
leprechaun daughters
(Laughing as they pour,
without canoe
down mint colored rapids.)

Oh,
Here is the stuff
of olive and eye and tornadic sky
and bullfrogs and soldiers and
old moldy cheese.
SNEEEZE…

Oh,
Here is the stuff
of emerald and Kelly
‘n smelly fresh things,
bean stalks and belfries
and twiggies with wings.

Oh here
is the dead naked light
all clean, cold, and gold
splashing
back at the sun,
cell over cell
all virid
with life.