the grass

for jamie parsley

 moon--

I have pulled

opened and split

the grass
at the binding.
 It becomes

a curled tongue,

a compressed
nautilus,

a hive

of the sea

unending.

And

words, saturated

with earth

rise

like decanted

air, a mild

grief

between what blade

I’ve pulled

what blades

remain.

It takes time, adjusting
 to that dark.
To see.

My strong left

eye and my nearly blind

right argue

all the time.  Impatient,

the left has had

a lifetime of taking

over, the right

a lump in a wash

of amber blur.

I think I dream
though

with my right eye.

Maybe day

light is too bright.

Maybe the grass

I’ve opened

isn’t for reading

but for dreaming,

 for sensing

the root, for escorting
out
and
  up

and then
patting down the dark,

to smooth it over.

And finally,
When the words

are laid out
on the top

 of a long gone bottom, it’s

my right eye

that catches the pinch

first.  Because
in such dark

  it's what's left
that's at rest.

And listen:
the right has been waiting

 in all this learned

quiet.  It is

a monk’s robe opening

and with ocular

reserve,

stepping up

the Everest blade

without

anyone seeing that foot

lift at all,

or the one

clump of snow

fall, and slightly,

a butterfly flutter,
fall.

It's a simple drop
in wind
 to the tongue
of a blade
of grass.