Advice: A Book of Poems

Chapter 16: ADVICE TO A GRASS-BLADE

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About This Book

A series of short lyric pieces speaks directly to plants, animals, objects, streets and people, offering counsel, observation and ironic tenderness through apostrophic address. Urban and industrial vignettes sit beside pastoral and fable-like poems, with occasional dialogues and parable structures that alternate between sardonic humor and elegiac calm. Recurrent contrasts between motion and stillness highlight scenes of labor, performance and fleeting beauty, while a personal, conversational tone links meditative portraits and sharp urban sketches to broader reflections on perception, loss and small, uncanny moments.

ADVICE TO A GRASS-BLADE

Thin and dark green symbol

Of an earth forever raising

Myriads of chained wings,

Breezes have a form, to you,

And sounds break into vivid shape.

The proud finality of tiny sight

Cannot lure your pliant blindness.

Thin and dark green blade,

Be not awed by trees and men

Whose sound is all that gives them life.

You reach the sky because your face

Is not turned toward it.