Eden-Green

I wrote this poem in first year, when I was taking a second year creative writing class. I would send my poems to my friend Goob so that he would help me name them. Usually he would give me at least one word that would spark my interest, and I'd tweak this rest -- hence "eden" green. Seemed like an excellent and loaded adjective.

I'm sure being able to name your own poems seems like a simple and obvious thing to be able to do as a writer, but I think you have to grow up a lot, and gain insight into who you are and what you actually want to say, before you can do it. I name (most of) my own poems now.


Eden-Green

The powdery brown path
carves apart
the thick lush trees

and the tree tops are ragged paintbrushes
stroking
deftly painting everything Eden-green.

We can’t see through the canopy
except on this dirt track
which has punched a snaking cut
in the trees, leaving a
scar of sky gleaming through

as though someone had lazily, erratically
dragged a knife
against this canopy, opening it up.

We spend out entire time looking up at this wound,
struggling for
a bearing between bars of branches.

The birds view the forest
as a soft green smudge—
with a pale brown ribbon
splitting all that green velvet.