Seed for Every City

The greatest of our cities build themselves upon a seed,
and wrap their walls bracingly to cloak their vulnerabilities.

I’ve walked an all too familiar path, unto a most alluring creature.
One with beauty the likes of which I have never laid eyes upon;
skin, the likes of which has never sampled my coarse palm.

Let it roll, onwards and out, from the lines in your hand,
let it be cast to the spade-driven crater.
Anticipate the cover of dark and the rain it often carries.
The same that kisses young roots to encourage their growth.
It must seem impossible that life’s longing beauties,
call upon the simplicity of a celibate seed.
Woven only from plant matter and the aspiration of life,
coerced entirely by unpronounced placement;
Its location, location, and again location.
If left unattended, and far too close to the fervor of flame,
prepare yourself to find but ashes.
Or left in the care of the howling cold,
both change and shell alike will be without motion.

Yield in the planting, do not be of haste.
Know that the mighty Redwood refuses to dwell on the ocean’s floor;
and the great Sycamore does not stress upon the clouds.
Be just as studious, to plant your seed in a place of assurance,
a place bare of limits, where it will grow free.
For its branches to reach upwards, reach outwards,
like a thousand jagged fingers;
coming to rest within uncharted galaxies.
Such freedom can know no restraints,
the tethers once employed sleep in fragments on the floor,
control has been lost.

You look as though you’ve forgotten my face:

I am the dull pair of eyes, knelt in plea to one day course with color.
The glass refracting light, so that you might scan upon self-portrait,
the sound barrier left unbroken, so your song can reach all ears.
I am the shepherd of rarest stone, stripped of his final artifact.

So do not douse the spark within my searching eyes,
how could you hurt whom you know so well?
Rather, you summon the fire from under your breath,
and sigh to set my soul aflame, bathe it in red, in orange.
The singing heart has never come through so proudly,
the traffic of my veins, has never been so busy.

Studying the lines in your face has taught me of your person,
your compassion, your aggression, and all of in between.
Of the plant you tend, the seed you crave,
the picture painted was most abstract.


Your expression speaks for you, when it begs of me to enlighten:

Why, you are the shining stone of the sea, awaiting my discovery.
The beautiful dislocation, awaiting my needle and thread,
the brilliant pick of flowers in a wilting garden, long since watered.
You are what perfection had in mind.

Thrust your translucent arrows to my quivering bow,
so that we might capture any star we so desire.
They’ll hurtle downwards denying the distance between earth and its skies,
they’ll pierce all that isn’t reinforced.
It seems that even the stars can’t help but fall for you,
to gather themselves around a string, honored to hang about your neck.

After all of my waiting, you’ve come, at last arrived.
The flawless jewel that my research longs for.
Unearthed, unscathed, unbelievable, undeniable.

Never before, have two grown with such magnificence,
never have they clothed themselves with such a cast of colors.
So intertwined, so intimate, from sharing pedals, to sharing scent.
They want to destroy what they are without, they will be with no avail.
We will remain to illuminate a second and third morning,
not even the sun can deny us passage.

If you won’t take my word for it, ask those closest to me.
Ask the wall of pearly white, revealed at your very presence.
Ask the heightening pulse when the heart receives word.
Ask the pupils who dilate to process your luminescence.
Ask the wavering voice, emitted through shaking lips.

Or just believe the three words that it manages.