If I Were Solar Powered

How wonderful it would be
to be encased in solar cells—
to feast from the spoon-filled sky
through hinges of my shoulder and ankle
or the leaf of an ear,
to feel the sap from my outer plates
sluice its honey to my tongue and
to know the cloudy-day comfort
of overflow bubbling deep in my fibers.
Free from obligations of utility
grids, I'd be my own corporate
meter and mill.
How wonderful instead perhaps
to be a chalice of the forest
brimming with chlorophyll
along with all the animals
who would be greened like me.
I would be content to stand as
the mossy rafters of a robin's nest,
mingle with minty deer and emerald snails
and drink my peaceful share
from the quenching sky.
Or I might lounge with the hollow straw man
turning taskless in the happy field
where the once-yoked grain
no longer toils for the hungry world.

And all the people like me
would flair their panels, preen like peacocks
or raise their jewel-green faces
to celebrate the glow
of the many shades
of our stained-glass skins.
Together we would stand spellbound
at night and watch the fronds of our hands
hula tales of how
we were once naked greedy trees
grabbing and scratching the land
until the sun-god wakened us
to stretch skyward
like spring leaves.