Alphabet City

Some seeds display
erratic behavior
rather inconsistency
in their rate of sprout
with respect to time –
how long – and volume –
how many, more specifically
the percentage coming through

I treat such seeds with mild disdain
jostling their incubators and
peat pellet packs, perturbations
surely their style, nothing regular
about the routine I provide, rotating
to sun, shade to moist, dry
to mist, drench to relaxed bouts
on cedar planks, cool porches after
hot days, the deck still radiant with heat
photons captured their pulse eager
to tell of where they’ve been, places
they hope to see

The seeds, perhaps seedlings now, asleep atop this cooling bed
dream on behalf of light emanating underneath as heat

Into the earth on a vision quest
for hydrogen-oxygen-carbon – even more sunlight
color minerals, trace elements, the spectrum
proxy for the union of unnamed things

Inconceivably there are no more miles for the light to travel,
if I have not made my point clear, it’s traveled all of the miles
of distance that exist

So it must assemble in wave, in halos about the drop-off so sheer
without sign of bottom, more surrender than plummet, the last call for shadows
in a world of no sound though I imagine that the shriek of gravity is deafening
beyond here there are no more walls

it’s certainly not the place nor time
for hand puppets though that certainly would be ballsy

Hop atop with me, ride the sunspot madly
blindly, dash with me into the light
we shall make new stems and leaves together!

© Chagall 2014