222 Poem by OWEN I.A. ROCHE

Go now greenly into brown
and shed the dead outerness
serenely, as maid gown,
as life body, as cicada skin.

To end is to begin:
Plant to seed, seed to plant,
to the original infinity
of virginity enceinte -

Yet how fragile and thin
is the Universe, held
in feather balance; repelled
and equally drawn by tides
of nothing, which abides,
having been, and being, will be.

Go now greenly.