ODE TO GREEN

I enjoyed Rita Dove’s excessive alliteration in “Ode to My Right Knee” so much I decided to use it as inspiration for a poem about my love/hate relationship with green’s takeover of the gorge in May.

Ode to Green/ Sara Lynne Puotinen

Greedy gorge gobbler grifting
vistas. Vanishing views.
Overrunning overlooks. Orchestrating

take-overs–trees tressed,
scenes stolen, senses smothered. Stop.
Yield your yearly

domination. Dress down. Decide
against always
exuding excess.

Oh overabundant obstruction,
we want windows, ways
out, openings, other

perspectives, possibilities. Please
share some space. Surely
room remains

for faithful friends forever
craving crowd-less calm
where water waits, wants witnessing, where

laboring lungs long
to take
bigger, bug-less breaths beside
river’s rim?