Poem for Tuesday and Green Spring Succulents

Poem in Which I Transition into a Succulent
By Alain Ginsberg

These are the hands of something ungreen.
Yes, I want to die, but all I have been able
to do is kill, again and again, so I hope to plant myself,
dirt hands into dirt making dirt body a succulent,
something manageable, but needing management.
I forget to water myself and my plants suffer,
I forget to tend to my roots and I displace,
I am dirty but am not kept for, not sprawled after.
When there is direct light you will not find me,
though I need it. Plant me is a better way of saying
I want to be buried and remembered for it.
Bury me is a way of saying end me, make this final,
watch as I create myself again every year, something
that blooms over and over again. No one asks
a perennial when they will stop themselves,
but no one knows when I will be happy with where I grow
so I must be dying or sinning but what is the difference.
Poetry was a mistake, but if you mistake enough
it becomes a habit or an intention. Mistake me into a girl
enough and I will become myself green, something with cells
rooting out of me, something that will last well after
your voice leaves you, well after my voice dissipates into
the sun.

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So the roof we just spent a fortune replacing leaked in the rain the other night -- we could hear it dripping in the attic. They are sending someone tomorrow morning to see what's going on and I will do my best not to strange whoever it is. I was therefore cranky all day Monday, though I had a fairly nice day otherwise. I met Kay for lunch at Tara Thai, then spent over an hour in Dick's Sporting Goods trying to get someone to help me, though ultimately they didn't have the waterproof Columbia hiking shoes in stock anywhere nearby and I had to order them.

We postponed watching this week's Black Lightning for the last episode of I Am the Night, which was very creepy and not altogether satisfying since it didn't tell us nearly enough about what Fauna (who's based on a real person) learned about herself and her identity from her experiences, though the acting is all very good. Then we watched the second episode of The Enemy Within, which reminds me of Blindspot and is interesting enough that I'll certainly watch the third episode. Here are cacti and succulents from the conservatory at Green Spring Gardens: