FROM THE GROUND UP
MATTHEW LEMOYNE
for my love
Some wise guy once advised me that a rose
falls short of the noble potato for
displays of love, because the spud is more
hearty, less transitory, and it grows
deeper each hour it’s alive to nose
its doggish way into the garden floor,
to drive itself toward Earth’s golden core
despite the anxious darkness that it knows.
And yet, while I agree that roses are
perennially trite, who gives their love
a tuber and expects exquisite nights?
Listen, love: my father gave my mother
potatoes and roses every year of
their loving compromise. Let’s fight
that tried paradigm.
I will give you
a plant you won’t
just put in a vase,
call it quits—
something better
surely exists
besides flowers
needing nothing,
independent
ephemeral
incarnadine
perennials
they may be. I’m
giving you a tree that sings while it sinks
searching roots deep into silent soil holds
air like a spry bird while stirred leaves unfold
books of veins printed with blithe prayers I thank
a louder heaven with each time you breathe
this tree grows an atom’s full mile skybound
and groundwise dirt breaks like a stratosphere
post-storm when you speak my cortices hear
more than mere air shivers more than hard sound
bounds between us branches that beat blank death
in broad daylight back from its own brown brink
won’t stop growing as long as love unfolds
between us this tree won’t stop seeking golden
suns and stones make for bold singing
along with the meaning we make
out of air and a sweet
grasping bath of
green light
