Green: The Colour of a New Country

It came for her,
long-legged, a giraffe
freckled and loping
across her African dreams;
she thought, her eyes closed,
soft lids fluttering,
green. The colour between
yellow and the pale blue
of the early morning sky;
the green just a soft step from olive,
the dry dust of South Africa
before the long rains.

And when home became
the rain forest of Canada,
and she barely reaching out to puberty;
it moving toward her like a starling
something soft and fluttering,
the south side of her uterus,
building and releasing her eggs,

rolling down fallopian tubes; olives
rolling, seedless and full,
ripe and salty.
And she discovered Canadian greens,
not living in Africa so rich
with pottery filled browns
and muted reds; she saw Canada
a blade of grass,
a small wood frog,
an olive moving inside of her.
A new country growing.

© Heather Simeney MacLeod