arugula

Let's bless the green bits, and the sink that cleans them.

Eating these, our atoms wear sweaters of chlorophyll

and cozy up to one another, making messages pass faster,

as green woolen atom elbow nudges green woolen atom side.

Let's go ahead now and acknowledge that emphasized in winter

is the oneness of objects, so that our green mixes are comprised

not only of arugula and mustard greens, but are made also of

towel, cat, birch, telephone, right arms, left feet, chagrin and glee.

Let's not forget what these greens mean!

Let's improve our memory by cramming

our heads with the stuff, fit like cotton balls,

dyed, extended, covered in leaves and gleaming,

around our silly sleepy hemispheres.

Take in everything, weeds and nets included,

and digest yourself into them.

gabriel oaks, again.

alice, he says, I'll hold this for you.

Look, I rest beauty on my shoulders,

so that you do not feel the burden of the flower.

You can fight battles of impulse,

scowl at your own knees,

and only later, return to me.

-clogged yet unalloyed man of the goodwill treasure shelf-

part one

hold out your fists as if holding a steering wheel,

that's habit.

now turn over your hands, open your palms,

as if receiving a pile of linens for the bed you'll sleep in,

that's nirvana.

that's what the straight spined woman said,

and if I trust her calm smile, I'll believe it.

If breath constructs balanced awareness,

why is beauty all muddled and skipping, both

during the inhale and the out?

I singe the leaves when I enlighten the plant.

I wrestle with the same problem of the silly apple,

over and over and over again, until I find myself

eating the concept.

the woodlanders

with gratitude, we get through