“Greensickness” by Laurel Chen

My wild grief didn’t know where to end.
Everywhere I looked: a field alive and unburied.
Whole swaths of green swallowed the light.
All around me, the field was growing. I grew out
My hair in every direction. Let the sun freckle my face.
Even in the greenest depths, I crouched
Towards the light. That summer, everything grew
So alive and so alone. A world hushed in green.
Wildest grief grew inside out.

Laurel Chen‘s poem, “Greensickness,” is inspired by Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brook‘s piece, “To the Young Who Want to Die.” Brooks’ poem ends with the lines, “Graves grow no green that you can use. / Remember, green’s your color. You are Spring.” Chen uses this imagery of a green without use as folder for “Greensickness,” which speaks to Chen’s belief that “grief isn’t a dead thing.”

Chen’s first stanza speaks of their grief as a wild growing thing that won’t stop spreading. They cannot bury the green that multiplies through the vibrant field. Their sorrow is an unstoppable, alive force. There is no end in sight for them.

Laurel Chen is a Taiwanese poet. A Kundiman fellow, they live in the Bay Area, on unceded Lisjan (Ohlone) territory.

I crawled to the field’s edge, bruises blooming
In every crevice of my palms.
I didn’t know I’d reached a shoreline till I felt it
There: A salt wind lifted
The hair from my neck.
At the edge of every green lies an ocean.
When I saw that blue, I knew then:
This world will end.

In the second stanza, Chen attempts to find an end to their grief, a place where the landscape will change from the green field. Thankfully, they reach the sea and realize, “At the edge of every green lies an ocean.” There can be borders around their green of grief, a separation from the grief and everything else.

Grief is not the only geography I know.
Every wound closes. Repair comes with sweetness,
Come spring. Every empire will fall:
I must believe this. I felt it
Somewhere in the field: my ancestors
Murmuring Go home, go home—soon, soon.
No country wants me back anymore and I’m okay.

In the third stanza, Chen recognizes that they’ve known other types of topography. They know, “Every wound closes.” They “must believe this,” that healing will come, even to those areas where the pain seems eternal. Though everything changes when people experience a great loss, Chen knows, eventually, they will be okay.

If grief is love with nowhere to go, then
Oh, I’ve loved so immensely.
That summer, everything I touched
Was green. All bruises will fade
From green and blue to skin.
Let me grow through this green
And not drown in it.
Let me be lawless and beloved,
Ungovernable and unafraid.
Let me be brave enough to live here.
Let me be precise in my actions.
Let me feel hurt.
I know I can heal.
Let me try again—again and again.

In the final stanza of “Greensickness,” Chen knows the depth of their grief is directly related to how deeply they’re loved. They know the healing process will go on forever. As long as they don’t allow themselves to drown in the fields of green grief, they can allow themselves to feel pain because they know they can heal. They accept that the rolling fields of green are a part of their world. They know they can visit the blue oceans and shores when necessary. It all builds a rich inner world of experience.