| So, it's been well over a month since I've posted anything now, mostly just because I've been not really writing. Fortunately, I've had a number of pieces congeal recently. This one is just finished. Doubtless needs some fine tuning, but it's been a while... Were dandelions always weeds?
Back before urban decimation,
concrete desecration
were they just flowers, sewing their seeds?
Before you had to be able to grow
in a six inch space between sidewalks,
before you had to thrive on soil that could pass as ash
were they so overwhelming, so overbearing?
Before natural selection gave way
to let the pushy humans have their say,
before acid rain and poison spray,
lumberjacks, highways, factory farms,
before nuclear plants and nuclear arms,
before our genes were mutated and divorced,
having signed papers and split the debt equally,
one got the car, one the tv
were they just part of the spectrum of forest vegetation
adorning the toes of the trees? Were dandelions always so undesirable
before they were everywhere,
the only plant able to consistently withstand human assault.
Back before we came up with our potent poisons,
weed control and hoes,
did they sprawl endlessly across the land, an army,
stomping out all that grows?
Were they unkempt and uncountable?
Were they savage and relentless?
Were they unbound and contentless?
Or did they grow happily with the roses and lilies?
Did people see their amber waves of gold with the finest silken blooms
and not think that it looked silly?
Back before we weeded out everything else
to make room for our concrete to flourish,
were they unsatiably hungry,
or were they gently nourished? What I’m saying is,
is this a problem that we’re solving,
or is it of our creation
are we solving the earth’s deformity
or soliciting grotesque mutation?
Were dandelions ever an uncontrollable problem
before they were the only things that withstand the concrete massacre
Was Jezebel ever a harlot,
before being cast in that role,
does a mountain goat ever have to worry about flooding
if he never digs a hole? Are guns the solution to the war melodrama
or are they the star?
Are we seeing more of the world
by staring at the inside of a car?
Did the dandelion ever do anything so wrong
as to be purged from this earth,
other than merely survive where others have suffocated
underneath that nasty human girth? |
