Grow

Horsetails can grow through the sidewalk.

I’ve seen it.  Gem-bright fingers breaking through

With the patient, inexorable strength of green.

Like the holly and the ivy, and worse –

Blackberry vines, spined monsters of the mountain

All conspire, to thread and twine greedily skyward

giving shelter to birds who heedlessly devour

their berries, ensuring their survival

anywhere and everywhere. 

Those thorned arcs will rise

again and again. 

As sure as sunlight.

We move, and so did they

On livestock, boats, and boots.

Planted on purpose, dropped by accident,

Withering hearts of stalwart gardeners

Crowding and smothering rare wildflowers

Shiny geraniums creep to cover the Cascades,

Dandelions toss their yellow heads careless, airborne

And not one of them know.

They’ll never know.

Be vigilant! With a seductive body

And wicked heart

The creeping buttercup, that yellow horror, remains!

We name it evil, unclean! So we must cast it out

Pull it, poison it, or burn.

While beneath our feet,

Bindweed roots travel deep,

Turning with the pull of fate.

The First Law: The Earth Shall Be Covered

In divine, oxygen-pumping green,

rising to heaven.

The order of the universe,

The ultimate resplendence of the whole,

Which includes all things, contains this power

This sacred community of the unwanted,

Cursed, banished, their truths unseen.

And here, in crumbling pavement,

These ascendant spires

Perfect lives of strength

From millions of years before us,

They will live on long after we’ve gone.

I can only fall to my knees before them

Awestruck

With fear and love.