qarrtsiluni

by Ellen Roberts Young

The iron cord caught fire;
uncertain motions of the day
turn sharp, compelling.
A close call burns off
film that veiled sight,
reveals color, redresses
the situation in scarves
and saris, gold threads in
silky hues of earth and sky.

There’s nothing tentative about
the grass except its tone,
in transit toward summer green,
shifting through shades
in the artist’s palette,
altered by sun or shadow.
Names are motes in the I
of the beholder, must be
unsaid in order to see. The grass
has nothing to say but itself.

Philosophies are built
in the corkscrew of years.
For slow learners, Nature
reviews each year from
the ground up, patient
as a first-grade teacher,
going from letters to words
around the seasons, yet
unconcerned, detached,
a zen master, saying look,
look again, see for yourself.
God is green and gold.

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Ellen Roberts Young, a California native who spent almost 40 years in Pennsylvania, is now part of the writing community in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Her chapbooks, Accidents (2004) and The Map of Longing (2009) are published by Finishing Line Press. In addition to numerous journal publications, her poems have been anthologized in The Wisdom of Daughters and Orpheus and Company.