Green, How Much I Want You Green

Journal of Canadian Studies, Winter 2004 by Page, P K

Green, how much I want you green.

Great stars of white frost

come with the fish of darkness

that opens the road of dawn.

- Federico Garcia Lorca, "Somnambular Ballad"

Landscape of crystals

rock salt and icebergs

white trees, white grasses,

hills forged from pale metals

padlock and lock me

in the Pleistocene.

See my skin wither

heart become brittle

cast as the Snow Queen.

Green, how much I want you, green.

Green oak, green ilex

green weeping willow

green grass and green clover

all my lost youth.

Come before springtime

before the brown locust

come like the rain

that blows in the night

and melts to fine dust

great stars of white frost.

Water, sweet water

chortling, running

the chinooks of my childhood

warm wind, the ripple

of icicles dripping

from my frozen palace.

How sweet the water

moonstones and vodka

poured from a chalice

with the ftsh of darkness.

Come water, come springtime

come my green lover

with a whistle of grass

to call me to clover.

A key for my lock

small flowers for my crown.

The Ice Age is over,

green moss and green lichen

will paint a green lawn

that opens the road of dawn.

- RK. Page