In science they call it camouflage, the ability to blend into one’s surroundings. To make one’s body invisible and yet there, alive, breathing.
I have an idea, a project du jour that goes like this. Let’s collect green poems. We’ll make a collage out of them. I will get us started with a little bit of William Carlos Williams:
Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
like a buttercup
upon its branching stem-save that it’s green and wooden-
I come, my sweet,
to sing to you.
P.S. I can’t get the spacing of the poem to appear correctly. The three-line stanzas are arranged like stairsteps. Apologies to everyone for that, and if you know enough HTML to tell me how to fix it, please send me an email.
I love Garcia Lorca’s “Romance Sonambulo.” Here’s the last stanza:
Green, how I want you green,
green wind, green branches.
The two friends climbed up.
The stiff wind left
in their mouths, a strange taste
of bile, of mint, and of basil
My friend, where is she–tell me–
where is your bitter girl?
How many times she waited for you!
How many times would she wait for you,
cool face, black hair,
on this green balcony!
Over the mouth of the cistern
the gypsy girl was swinging,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
An icicle of moon
holds her up above the water.
The night became intimate
like a little plaza.
Drunken “Guardias Civiles”
were pounding on the door.
Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea.
And the horse on the mountain.
— Federico Garcia Lorca