POEMS for LENT • THE GRASS

"The Grass" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

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"Bouteloua black / grama grass red / chino side- / oats blue grama grass / hairy buffalo- / grass toboso three-awn / land's dawn" and "whispering seeds / will pass, will pass / within leaves / listening" —from "The Grass" by Jeffrey Yang

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Jeffrey Yang conjures up an immense sea of grass: grassland upon grassland called forth through incantatory lines that name the various species of North American grasses of the Great Plains.

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I have stood in the midst of the such a sea of grass in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland in southwestern South Dakota. Standing in the midst of chest-high grass, where all I could see was more grass in all directions was a bit of a "Pip moment" (like the experience of the cabin boy in Moby-Dick when he is left abandoned in the middle of the ocean). There was only grass and sky. It was a moment of great joy, as well as a moment of great terror when I realized the vast scale of grassland and how small I was in the midst of such scale. Just as in the poem, I found myself "hitched to everything else / in the universe."

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What happens when one realizes how small one is? What happens when one realizes the vastness of the cosmos and the immensity of the divine?

The answer is whispering in the wind. We merely need to listen.