Grass

Sunchaser Fine Art and Photography

Grass

Grass basks greedily in the sun

As light penetrates each vein

Saturating the stem in the sheath.

Grass contains every gradation of green:

Loves both fiery sun and drenching rain;

Tugs the watcher downwards, underneath

Grass to crushing earth and stone.

Still the watcher comes to watch again,

To see the grass caress the gravel path.

Alan Bold

There are miracles underfoot. Even this carpet that we walk over, this living, breathing sprawl of green. A few of the recent poems have had similar movement –  up from under – “Listen” by Iain Crichton Smith, and “here’s to opening and upward” by e.e.cummings. This poem by contrast takes us down. Underneath! The place where everything begins. In the dark, in the imagination, in the heart. All the longing, the straining, the desire for light and the infusing of hope ferment here, they awaken and stir us with a yearning for something more. The poem reminds us that life begins in darkness, the seed buried  - how amazing that this should be where hope originates. And it made me think as well - these are not "new" plants, not at all, these are resurrection plants, each blade of grass a descendant of the grass of Eden. And we also, are resurrection people, sons and daughters of Eden, carrying the hope of the first garden with us, however dark life may seem.