for the victims of the bombings in Sri Lanka, Easter 2019
The crepitation of grass seeds sprouting is the stir of green emanation —
that’s the underwriting of a grassland rousing itself from sleep
just as a lamb calls fiercely for its mother rousing the dog across the ravine.
It’s an unbearable weight to bring to bear on the ground as the sudden
chatter of familiarity, the cooperation of seeds, their ‘go now’ forms its inland neap,
the crepitation of grass seeds sprouting is the blur of green emanation.
It’s tense knowing the grass is coming, programmed in — a rerun
of last year though this year’s not the same, this summoning from the not-so-deep,
just as a lamb calls fiercely for its mother rousing the dog across the ravine.
We walk roughly then suddenly soft as news of a further extermination
of people at prayer turns the freshly risen grass back to the hurt soil’s grip,
the crepitation of grass seeds sprouting is the blur of green emanation.
The fear of who might possess the last breath, who knows the seen and unseen,
the sounds that reverberate after the grass retreats from its hope,
just as a lamb calls fiercely for its mother rousing the dog across the ravine.
But faith is woven through faith — a spirit path through grass’s patterns
of grass, and the intricacies of call and response, of the grass’s sudden leap
just as a lamb calls fiercely for its mother rousing the dog across the ravine,
the crepitation of grass seeds sprouting the stir of green emanation.