What Would Root

Walking through a cathedral of oak trees

and bristlecone pines, scolded by squirrels

in their priestly black, their white collars

wagging with the force of their scolding, I

was struck, simultaneously, in both eyes,

by some sort of flying detritus—pollen or seeds—

and stopped to lean against a rock

to scrub it (I thought) away. It was May,

it was May, it was May, and the air was sweet

with pine and Island Mountain lilac. The squirrels,

I mentioned them already, etc, and the lizards

ran down the spines of rocks like a bad feeling. I

could see everything: red-headed hummingbirds

dipped their beaks into the little red hoods of penstemon,

and I, a redhead, could hear everything: a red-crested

woodpecker, who was not offended I did not know his name.

And I could see everything: it was all green, really;

even the red was anti-green, and though my eyes

ached from everything-seeing, I could taste the granite

in the spring (oh yes, I drank water from the ground; I

was wild, even then, though the squirrels scolded

me and tried to convince me I was not). Soon I crested

a rise; the land spread itself greenly for me and I

wished I had seed to toss into that green, just to see

what would root. My right eye would not close to this

view; why would it; but when I reached up to touch it, I

felt that there was a twig emerging, and another from my

other eye; that they were a part of my body I could not doubt;

they were living and enervated and jutting out. I

sat down, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck,

understanding for the first time they were not hairs, but roots.

I could see everything; it was all green; the twigs in my eyes

tasted sunlight with my mouth; the roots drew the salt

from my sweat into their vacuum, and I was no longer hungry:

my metamorphosis had rendered me perfectly self-sufficient. I

could see everything; the roots in my skull shifted and I

lay down beneath my own branches. I had to wiggle a bit to

find a place to lay my head; the rock was very hard,

and I needed softer ground—yes, a place for the top

of my head to come off, to nuzzle into the earth, to drink.