Renewal (ellipse 96)
Nicola Danby

Learning it all again. Over and over. 
The earth you tilled
deep within returns to mud
and rain, again, and your breath, cleared
of your throat and the trees
whistles in the wind: moved on, forgotten.
No more pages, no more words
to say what’s leaning 
on the edge of silence,
even your most perfected sentences.
Clattering adverbs again,
ornate in exhausted encrusted epithets.
Starting anew in the grass,
sleep in its slow sound
in the industry of ants,
its rustling, its awakenings,
you say: shivering grass,
you think of the earth
where the roots dwell in turmoil,
and your envy.