Go now greenly into brown
and shed the dead outerness
serenely, as maid gown,
as life body, as cicada skin.

To end is to begin:
Plant to seed, seed to plant,
to the original infinity
of virginity enceinte -

Yet how fragile and thin
is the Universe, held
in feather balance; repelled
and equally drawn by tides
of nothing, which abides,
having been, and being, will be.

Go now greenly.