Upon Returning from Switzerland

I was first struck with the brownness.

Not a chocolate drink or a burnt sienna,

not a paint swatch name inspiring artists,

but a dullness.

A foggy lens, gritty dust bumper brown.

Brown.

A cold and painful sound. Like a dingy sigh.

I came back at the worst time.

No desert dweller being honest would say the city looks best in winter.

There was no snow

to pad the edges,

and the boxes of recycling on the porch

suck up the cold and spread their glassy tin fingers in glittery orbs.

I was shocked to see,

in Switzerland,

how much trash I could produce.

a garbage mine, an offering

of American ingenuity.

My consumption only shrunk,

upon my return, when everyone else birthed more than I.

“Trash” is an Americanism.

No English Rubbish could fathom that.

I was shocked more, to see the shimmering green,

under European frost,

as cold as the first drafty mornings

lost at the beginning of eternity.

I can only hope the dusty desert in me,

in my home,

can hear the sounds of Swiss waters.

The green growl of growing,

and shake the stones that knew nothing else.

#poem #poetry