Why Not Inhabit Sunlight?
Why not inhabit sunlight,
not yet ferned, deeplier
flanked with devil’s club—
paint us back our picture
before fracture, verdant rupture
brush strokes center color
time bends
back to brilliance
crimson paintbrush
& later perideridia
an Apiaceae whorl
greenness
as percussive lull
inflorescence allures even as
thoughts trawl the blue-dark contours
of the seafloor, moor there—
why not inhabit sunlight—
where branches
bifurcate, radiate
& ferns reign
over felsic intrusions
flawless, never otherwise
photosynthetic fugue stirs
the green gust, circuitous—
why not inhabit sunlight?
not yet ferned, deeplier, where
juncos coax time lucid
& ethereal theories
rest wrought,
hungry, ungulate—
consciousness persists
in moss-dressed gneiss
REBECCA DURHAM is an American poet, botanist, and visual artist. Read more.