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Urban Harvest

Confronting climate change and poverty, a new crop of city farmers comes of age in Africa. Table of Contents | Digital Edition
Guardian Environmental Network

Letting the Grass Grow Under Your Feet

Illustration of grass by Belle MellorIt would rather not
     but of course it will.
          If you've tried standing on it
long enough, those blades
     will insist on a way out
          from under and up at last
into the light. You don't
     have to let it do that
          because it will. No matter how
stubbornly or heavily you bear down,
     something inside its cells
          doesn't believe in you
and your latent energy,
     your postponements of action,
          your useless indecision. It will grow
sideways and turn yellow or under pressure
     nearly white. It will turn
          to an almost all uprooted root for a while,
then send those blades (in spite
     of how long you stand in the way)
          up and around you.

Illustration by Belle Mellor

Related Tags: poetry David Wagoner
image of author
David Wagoner is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Good Morning and Good Night (University of Illinois Press, 2005), The House of Song (2002), and Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems (1999). Wagoner is also the author of ten n... READ MORE >