Poem from Wombwell Rainbow

Thanks to Paul Brookes, Curator, Editor, Publisher, Poet, for publishing this in Wombwell Rainbow on 29 October, 2023. This was written in response to a “On this Day” photo Paul posted on social media, so is ekphrastic.

Michael Dickel

7 October–6 November, 2023

Leaves once budded green. 
I can’t say when, but this one opened,
grew, took in sun, and
transformed light to feed
the whole magical being
on which it deftly grew—
holding firm until chlorophyll
faded, and the shell turned brown. 

Now it lies among fungi
and moss feeding from
death and decay to turn
sorrow, anger, loss, oh, the loss,
into healthy humus like
what nourished the plant. 

We say dust to dust but
that must be a lie. The
wet process more resembles mud,
organic clay mysteriously
mixed from blood,
tears, fungi, moss, bacteria—
even in dry deserts,
even in cement bunkers,
under bushes, in burnt cars,
in crushed buildings,
under rockets, slit open
with knives, or just quietly—

a few leaves prone
on gray wood, 
brown and white fungi
that always avoided green,
and sphagnum moss
shockingly green.
Moss, too, turns brown in time. 
Sometimes it preserves
in bogs what little
remembers our
mortal coil. Sometimes
all memory rots to nothing.

But that nothing revives,
rejoins the turning color wheel,
and allows us to breathe 
in the face of death. 
To breathe and take a step
in the face of thousands dead.

©2023 Michael Dickel

Original version (slightly different): The Wombwell Rainbow 29 October 2023