Pocket Garden

Try this: before you go inside to sit
in air-conditioned quiet, pull one leaf
and stick it in your pocket, like a thief.
Tell no one. Make a mystery of it.

In meetings, secretly caress the veins,
trace sawtooth edges, chlorophyllic flesh,
and surreptitiously inhale the fresh
green scent from fingertips: black earth, new rains.

It's easy to get trapped in what is not
a part of us; separate from the world
outside, and silence what's in us that sings
of sunshine-heated rocks, and fingers curled
around moist leaves. Let's learn what we've forgot:
there have to be connections between things.