Geof Huth


Man as Green as Eye

I am the green man for whom the summer allows no respite, the grower,
the maker, the trunk of maple aroused by the sun. I am the leaf,
leaves, the leaves overlapping leaves, the deepening shade in the hot sun,
a green lake holding in the cold. The sweet sap of maples runs through my veins.

Meadows grow within my palms into landscapes, continents, planets, the universe
entire. Green as the water I drink, the field I sleep upon, the forest seen from the sky,
my eyes survey the world but cannot read it. Yet they can see the red gash
on my chest, how I was ripped open and my heart removed, replaced with my own heart.

My wound wanders the world with me, always perpendicular to the earth’s surface,
and pointing downward. When I climb a mountain, I am walking the steps of my house
out of my basement, and I can feel the air burning in my chest, the air burning.
When my heart pumps, as I walk up the steps of my house, as I climb the mountain

out of the basement of my house up, out of the dark cool earth, into daylight
filtered through clouds, as I walk up the stairs with my heart pumping, my chest
is hollow from the burning air in my lungs. I am the green man, master of the sole
earth, and I am pulling my red heart out of the basement of my house into sunlight.

My chest is hollow, and the squirrels nest inside me, raising their blind young,
and I can feel the wind blowing through my chest, the sunlight raging like a surging
pain through my chest. It is my heart that is hollow, pumping my red blood, the red
blood that has disappeared from my body. My heart echoes through the emptiness,

through my hollow chest, through the maple trunk of my hollow chest as I walk
up the stairs into my attic, as I stumble up the stairs in the heat, and I feel my red
heart racing up the stairs in my chest, in my hollow chest. From the eyebrow
window of my attic, the green-eyed window of my house, looking over the green

maples of my yard, I see neither tree nor house nor human nor animal. I see
my topographic existence, how green it all is on the ground, in the water,
through the air. I sense my red heart slowing down in the attic, in the heat, with my sweat,
with my sweat slipping down the side of my face, through my beard, over

the hairs of my hollow chest, my hollow chest expanding to breathe, to take in
a breath, contracting to let it out. I can feel my beating heart, red like a fist,
hollow, beating hollow in my hollow chest, where my voice rebounds as I say
these words through my hollow house, as I walk down each stair, one by one,

as I walk out my door, alone by one, as I walk into a park overgrown and
green with summer, as I walk back out of my white house into a green world,
my green world. I am the green man. I stand before you, I came before you,
I saw before you saw the green world that is my home, and I return there now

with my red heart beating against the red slash on my chest, the red scar that
vibrates in the sun, that grows fat like a muscle in the dappled shade of my
green world. I am on a great mountain that is only a small hill in the park,
and I stand among the woods, this landscape of woods, this land of my words,

and I search for her, for the green maiden who is my wife, for that sylvan creature
green with summer. I find her in maple shadow, green as black is green,
and I can feel the green world surrounding her. And she removes her garments,
the green leaves she peels from her skin, until she glows white in the green

shade, and she turns, the maiden turns her back to me, she holds the trunk
of a great tree, and she is the tree, and I am a tree, for I am the green man,
and this is my world, a green world, growing, growing, and I grow. She leans
against the tree that is her people, and opens her legs, and I can see her red gash

opening to me, and I enter her wound, warm and wet, warm and wet and
pulsing, like the wound on my chest, like the wound pulsing upon my skin,
upon my bone, against my hollow, and the empty beating of my heart,
and I move within her, each thrust a beat, each beat a breath, each breath

a gasp. As I move within her, I see myself dripping red with her blood.
The moon rests in the sky as I drip red onto the green earth. I am the green man
and the forest I inhabit and the warm green water of the pond, and I am
inside her, creating a green world through a red wound, my red heart beating.

Every stroke is a breath, every breath a word, every word a story, every story
a spasm. As my heart beats hard and hollow, my white semen spills
from me, empties my body, and everything leaves me: thought, blood, semen, air.
(I am the green man.) I am trembling with her power. I am red with her blood.

The air leaves my lungs, the blood leaves my heart, my semen flows out
of her, down her legs. My hair is wet against my body. I drip both red and white.
My chest is hollow. My heart is hollow. My body hollow. My voice is hollow
and it echoes against the trees one last time, as I tumble into endless time,

onto the soft forest floor, with my red scar burning and my red heart burning,
and my breath run out, everything removed, and I am forest and grass and leaves
upon the trees, I am green water, and I am the green man of this green world,
whose red heart holds nothing, for I am the hollow trunk they beat to make their music.

 
 
 
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