The Fading of Green

It occurs when the mind is still

and the eyes become transfixed...

on lessons much more important

than mere aging.

It happens if the conditions

in which becoming naked again

will not escape our

naked attention.

Only what you bring

to this will bleed and follow through;

for with the fading of green,

what changes most is you.

We view us in a mirror dimly lit.

Plumes of smoke

surround our sights to see.

In poverty, I come.

In poverty, I see.

In poverty, I become.

In poverty, I become seen.

I am seen,

not for that which has corroded me,

but for all that erodes my

shameful, shaming shames.

No more names.

Let's drift away, together,

in that sense of shameless unity -

of profundity.

Of - to them - profanity.

From profane to great,

only we will be seen

in the dimly lit mirror,

on pages written once,

through the aging of our bodies...

in the fading of green.

(And we will truly be seen.)