She said she hopes that there will always be nice, quiet places to live. And on Earth. My white root upturns to sky, beseeching your forgiveness. Your fields are green now. The weeds are gone.
Gold is gone.
Once my leaves dyed a warrior's body indigo, face of priestess blue, a monarch's raiment purple. My pain was sacred. My cockatoo once flew white among orchids and huge ferns. Now from a cage he surveys a world of lawn and screams when a black cat steals through the green afternoon. Shadows stretch long in the grass as a bone-white bird fills urban dusk with his cry.