direct experience enters the mind the way energy from the sun enters the belly
through the form of a plant that photosynthesized the world into being
when I spear a pea I am lovingly aware of the green orb
living on a green and blue orb with all the other elements that constitute life
sometimes I will digest the pea and sometimes the pea lives in the earth and composes itself from within
its all right not to understand
I must re-discipline myself to a do-nothing method
a sweetpea grows on the banks of the merri creek
it’s young green stalk curls upwards with many special fingers floating into space
I put this in a small bowl I bought in Kyoto
the stalk drinks the water and continues to live for the rest of the week
re-fashioning the air of the room with a tiny verdant pulse
hello it says each morning, hello I say right back
the natural fertility of the earth can enter the smallest of vessels
living is the result of being born
the vital motor of living and dying in the mouth, with the pea, and the breath
Samantha Abdy is a poet who lives in Melbourne. Work can be found online at Cordite Poetry Review, LOR journal and scum-mag.
NOTES:
Text contains phrases or variations of phrases from the following sources:
One Straw Revolution, Masanobu Fukuoka, trans Larry Corn, Chris Pearce, and Tsune Kurosawa 2009.