Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts & Letters Volume 4, Issues 1 & 2 | Page 7

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LUCILLE!LANG!DAY!

REDWOODS AND RAIN
I am redwoods and rain,
stomata like green lips opening
for a kiss on the underside of leaves,
a leopard leaping high as a house,
its fur glowing with black-gold roses.
I am untold generations of ancestors,
back to the ones who painted
with charcoal on the walls of caves
and hunted aurochs and mammoths
across vast, uncharted plains.
I’m also the grandchildren whose small
hands I hold, and the great-grandchildren
who might or might not be born.
My elements come from supernovae
blown light-years across space.
I am mostly water, an ocean
of matter and energy grown conscious.
The fate of the Earth is my domain.
I am slime mold and diatoms,
bluebirds and dolphins, daisies,
archaebacteria, redwoods and rain.

!!Assisi!!!1!