Forbs, Sedges, Rushes, Grasses

Other beings who breathe,
other beings who have seed
and writhe in the wind,
other beings who fall down in the grass,
who are themselves the grass,
sedges, rushes, who love to
get their feet wet,
I love to breathe with you,
enfold you in my arms.
You clean the water we drink,
that fish dance in.

Grasses, you are played by the wind like instruments,
like snare drums, fiddles.
You rustle and shake off the pearly dew of dawn.
You are larger than I ever dreamed of.
Your nation hides in small remote
pockets around us like
colonies of burrowing animals.

Other beings who breathe,
who we think cannot move.
You move.
You grow restless.
You encounter the whims of farmers,
mowers, sprayers of poisons.
You ride the wind and
on the backs of animals.
Birds eat you and you spread
through underground roots,
subterranean rhizomes, known to
a handful of scientists.

You move while healing, mending, cleansing.
Forbs, grasses, sedges, rushes,
of the prairies and wetlands, I bow to you.
You make your bodies from soil and light.
Your out-breath and my in-breath are one.

~Marilyn Klinkner

From "Fog on the Clock" by Marilyn Klinkner
Available from Green Dragon Prairie.