The grass is the perfect shade of green
Delicately accessorized by flowers
Each strand lays crisply in its place
Wading through the strong wind
The smell entrances those that walk by
Sending hints of your childhood up your nose
The chickadees' whistle as the trees sway elegantly
Every once in a while an acorn will fall
Rolling onto the pavement wanting to root itself in soil
A squirrel sneakily but sporadically greets it
Jumping around the helpless nut
It drags it only four feet until it is once again distracted
Crawling up the tree, perching itself
Staring at a wooden bench where a young lady sits
With her woven brown scarf wrapped delicately on her head
Writing in a blue book that is filled with experienced drawings
She has a paper bag of safflower seeds in her lap
A nearby dove purrs at her politely
The lady sets her velvety book down
For it is no longer interesting
She spreads the safflower seeds precisely around the off-white animal
Smiling as it gazes suspiciously at its food
Inhaling the powerful smell of the grass and dandelions
She gazes at the field in front of her and tucks her brown curl behind her ear.
Turning a page in her hardback book and writes:
*"The grass is the perfect shade of green"

A line of trees in massive form
Encroach along a ridge of stone,
Gnarled, bent and weather worn
Their clinging roots call granite home.
This ancient wood has weathered time
Felt the freezing gales of snow,
Has witnessed birth and death by day
Through life's kaleidoscopic show.

Oh the stories they can tell
When sunshine in the heavens ,warm,
When rivers run in merry tune
And safflower honey bees do swarm.
Oh the stories they can tell
When fillies kicked their heels in grass,
When whippoorwills did sing their song
And rampant stallions vied for class.

Oh the stories they can tell
When ancient armies trod this way
When clashing steel rang loud and clear
And good blood flowed in battle fray.
Oh the stories they can tell
When faceless horsemen galloped by,
The stench of putrid fear's lament
When populations bled to die.

Oh the stories they can tell
Of mountain peaks succumbed to fire,
Where ash removed the very sun
And panicked people fled the dire.
Oh the stories they can tell
Of black and white and good and bad
....But immaterial, perhaps, to trees
Who root in rock and seem so sad.


Marshalg
Taranaki dreamin'
26 May 2011

If I am to temptation
what temptation is to
loyalty, then why
must the safflower
be so pretty, yet
Dangerous?

Why must the smell
-Of this prickly thing-
be so alluring? Like
Cooked flesh to the starving?
Yet, it's poison flows just as quick.
Who knows-

Of course, I wish to pick it-
Clean? certainly not, but for the beauty
of a single safflower? Nearly anything would
suffice.
With June 'round the corner, there be nothing left
-but the hell that is life without you.

I do.