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Pat Brown

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When I Consider the Situation

I envy those architects who can express the towering treeness of a tree in
pillars propping up a canopy carved in wood,
catch toadstools in concrete in the act of outgrowing their strength

I envy all those who can make paint roll up and break onto rocky beaches
and those who melt cold stone into volcanic lava
or into muscles rippling on an athlete.

I envy those who can solidify the spaces in between so I can touch 
and those who let me stroke a newly-hatched horse chestnut carved  out of its parent trunk.

I envy them their tools, their measuring rods and their world of ingredients. 
They have access to more shades of grey than in all of my vocabulary. 
I want my elephant dung, my strobes,

I want something I can smell or hear or anything I can lay a finger on 
but words you've seen and heard before are all I am allowed.

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