I never understood
why green is the color of envy.
Green, the color of new life: the springtime
leaves of supple crocuses, the snow-drop’s stem,
the tiny blades of vernal life
poking through the crinkled brown,
and the shade of beginnings and of peaceful forests
dappled by filtered sunlight.
Envy is not green; it is not seen
at all, but heard
as a gyrating dissonance – an imperfect
suspension hung in the thick, crystal air –
a tension suckled by rapid heartbeats
and flushed, tightened cheeks.
Envy is the split second of silence
between the discord
and the resolve;
it lacks more than it knows and less than it wants,
endlessly empty and eternally requiring resolution.
One day, that chord will come
to break the silence, complete the cadence,
end the holding of breath that is
envy’s dissonance.
But for now, envy is without.
I never understood
why green is the color of envy.