Let me emerge a grasshopper, green
From egg and nymph be spun
The color of leaves as they first unfurl
When spring has just begun
Let me be a blade of grass
Amid the chorus in the wind
A single, individual shaft
With all creation as its kin
A humble flag, yet staff of life
For hungry creatures here within
A universe of vast array
From chlorophyll, the magic djinn
Let me be a canopy
Fortress to the forest floor
Arbiter of light and shade
Conductor shaping life’s parade
Breathing in and breathing out
co 2 to oxygen
Mist and cloud to bring about
With every exhalation
In future might I be reborn
A darner dragonfly
Surveying ponds and well beyond
Hunting for my prey
To molt my skin, green, shimmering
And grow it back again
With nature’s ever sleight of hand,
Dress me verdantly!
Photosynthesize my soul
And plant me with the masses
To be serene above the green
Of stems and spores of mosses
Let me be a grasshopper
So I can wear the green
The magisterial colors
Of nature’s bounty, seen
