Dear Green,

You know you have always been my favorite kaleidoscope.
Your heartstrings played me before I knew an aorta could
be more than a metaphor. Cloudy days are when we know 

each other best, even though they slow your grow. We both
know that a simmer means lower heat and longer life and
crispier cheese. That's how you do it with basil; thank you

again for all the times I've ground you up, blanched you, 
chopped you into iron filings. My teeth love spelunking 
for you more than any other; the floss feels it's only in

there for broccoli and green green pepper. You're waving
at me now. Hello. This letter may not find you, I know that
you rarely make time for black and white--you're a shades 

creature. You remind me that death is brown and crunchy
and a little satisfying, in addition to fuel for a slingshot 
cycle. Be the reason for spring, you say, when you retreat.

Be a high home for snow. I hope to have your comfort
with the day my rings become frozen in time, frozen in
bark-brown stasis, until fire releases to atmosphere. May

we be of substantially the same substance on that day and
the days that follow (insofar as we are not already star
dust motes). Let me be clear: you are the reasons I'm here.

You are my patriotism, my religion, my philosophy. I am
a faithless objector without you, a cynic's cynic's skeptic. 
It's your growth without overgrowth that first blows us 

apart, then breezes us back together; you remind me that
I am nature too, as are all these analyses, structures, and 
powers. Pollination is beyond us, you and me. We are 

stem-deep, ground-up, leaf-wide life. Our vigil
will breathe an endless sustaining note.

Yours Photosynthetically,
Poies