The Place of Green

This poem had its genesis in the prehistoric-sounding croak of a turkey vulture that was hanging around our neighbourhood. I’m not sure if he’s still around, but he was a very unusual member of our typical chorus of birds over the past few days. Anyway, contrast him with the robin, say, and Bob’s your poem—I mean—uncle.

Okay, so there’s more to it than that, Mary Oliver being by no means the least of it, but here you go.

The Place of Green

Into the place of green I will go each day,

Though the world cries: “be a desert!” to my soul,

Croaking like the turkey vulture over its dead,

Bringing the rattle of locusts where meadowlarks once laughed,

Lifting their voices as their wings lofted them

Upon the breezes of the breaking, now broken, dawn.

Still, Oh! still I hear it singing,

Somewhere beneath the madness and the murder,

Beneath the vacant chorus of voices

That seek to make of me a dry river,

A thirsty thing that would as soon drink poisoned water as sweet.

Still I hear it and still I seek it,

The morning song flowing deeply from the dayspring

And the chanting of night things as they seek their sustenance.

For the green still grows amid the grief,

Amid the weary world’s deep disdain for itself,

And from it I will bring a vine each day,

A sacred branch bowed down with fruit,

And if my feet do not fail and my arms do not tire,

I will tend these treasures in hope,

Making good of what I can,

Till I too am planted in the place of green.