a blade of grass || Brian Patten

You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.
You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.
You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,
And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.

--


I still remember the old self who admired this poem; the person who memorized each line and dictated it sharply along early showers of water, towards a troubling but promising day. Yes, I feel like the narrator, I feel what the speaker feels. It is not difficult for me to offer grass, but often when I do, the person has no chance to accept, because they have their backs turned or they have left hours after. Left me standing there amidst the gray afternoon clouds, the leaves of the trees singing the blues and my heart making this small pounding sound as if chasing the past with tiny yet hard leaps.