Eco Echo: An Oldster’s Tale

Photograph: “Trespass” by Suzanne Simmons. “Eco Echo: An Oldster’s Tale” was written by Devon Balwit for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2016, and selected by Simmons as the Artist’s Choice winner.
old man remembers
before we were here
 
what it was like there
he says listen before he forgets
 
old man says green breathed
bulged into food
 
took sun and made air
reached unfurled hung down
 
old man says green lived
that got under nails
 
in dirt stuff
hid things that crawled
 
old man says green was noisy
mouth blowing tiny
 
happy or warning
he shows me
 
old man jumps off furniture
trying to be light
 
like green’s singers
but he can’t lift up
 
old man says green
cold made it brown
 
changed color
heat yellow
 
old man says it spoke
he rubs his palms
 
went hush hush in fast air
and makes them whisper
 
old man says green held him
hid in its belly
 
that he climbed on its shoulders
gathered its scraps
 
old man makes me feel
green was like that he says
 
knobbed knuckles and toes
but rougher and stranger
 

 

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