It’s all green and blue today.
It’s gray, really,
but the leaves are greener than they’ve ever been.
Trees reach out to each other with broad, leafy hands.
They want to touch and play
like the blackbirds across the street.
They take off into the lazy light of a gray-blue sky
which makes the road the deepest navy.
Cars rove by. They’re quiet today.
I reach out to them. I wave.
The peace lily in my hands is green.
It’s quiet,
but patient and nervous as I comb through its roots,
fingers black with the wet soil I pull loose
and toss into the grass.
It’s black and brown and white, too.
Marks of my neglect and its will to live.
I apologize to it with gentle hands and a new pot.
I think it accepts.
Inside, my roommates play music.
Old ragtime piano that drifts through the open window
while they look at diagrams of diseases and defects.
I’m trying so hard to live in the moment
that I’m not living in any time at all.
So I look at the peace lily in my hands.
It’s green and quiet,
and patient as I comb through its roots,
untangling them like a lover’s knotted hair.
