I am moss clinging onto
pages of books, sucking air:
the wisdom of others is my friend.
Fertile green, slippery rock,
wet with love. Have you ever
loved a book so much
it became your being, and
the stories became yours?
You dream rainstorms
and you wake up twice
as long, full and hungry
for soil.
The leaf cups my body
as if to say
I am enough.
Shielded from the sun,
I sleep in a cocoon
of green.
The memory of the mild
winter is faded like
translucent skin.
The mandarin tree is
my home within a home;
a human family live
in a dark box nearby
with openings
that are mostly closed.
Every morning
the train horn
b l o w s.
I know of this machine
because my mother transmitted
her knowledge through webbed feet:
our ancestors were born near the tracks.
How does it feel to be a lily pad
hanging above water?
Or a turtledove chick who dies
on its first flight
from the potted plant?
Or a squirrel who breaks
the first nut of summer?
The leaves extend my limbs
into the earth, but
no matter how grounded I am
the questions come like raindrops,
bursting into the hard, white buds
that will bring orange fruit.
lifeismanythings 