Greening Time

I think of green, and of a nation's spring worn in by evenings when the summer's war marked birth in dripping red, and autumn's amber grief grew dry in sighing. Then winter sagged in its own weariness; gray breath lay heavily upon the snow, and time, impounded in its gelid womb-- solidified and comatose, could not envision dreams. I think of green, and men who had no time to think of it. No time to plan, or plough or plant green fields upon a blackened earth, for then it was that death romanced too well. Retire the colors. While my voice will revel in the song of victory, I still would think of Reich and greening time--* still carry in this aging shell a lust for peace, for justice, for humanity. ~ *Ref. to Charles Reich's book in the 70's, "The Greening of America"