Reeds

Siemen Dijkstra, "Last Sunlight"

Reeds

The blades sway. They ride

Unbleached, tugged in their full sap

By the slow current. Hindering

From thought, they think us back

To that first green, which the mind

Tenderskinned, since grazed to the pain of sight,

Shrank at, lapping us in a half-green content

And, there, left us. By nature

Trenchant, blue double-whets them,

Burned through the water from a sky

That has long looked at it

Untempered by any mist. In this

There is of theme or apophthem

No more than meets the eye. The blades sway.

Charles Tomlinson

Trenchant =
vigorous or incisive in expression or style.
Apophthem = 

a short, pithy, instructive saying; a terse remark or aphorism. 

Okay, I love reeds, grasses, rushes, etc. If there's a poem about them, I will be adding it. This one mesmerizes. That bit about swaying in the current has me swaying too. Other than the image of the reeds, what grabs me most is the line "hindering us from thought, they think us back to that first green". That first green. Immediately I think Eden - the first garden, the place of pure innocence, the beginning of all. Is Tomlinson saying that the reeds recall to us that state, that place so deeply buried in us, that home we all long for? Or maybe he's saying that the reeds in their colour and motion evoke something elemental, even though they are not actually saying anything at all. I don't know, but for me, "that first green" is what I long for and where I want to be. That I know for sure.