PLANTS


  1. Plants are deceptive. You see them there
  2. looking as if once rooted they know
  3. their places; not like animals, like us
  4. always running around, leaving traces.

  5. Yet from the way they breed (excuse me!)
  6. and twine, from their exhibitionist
  7. and rather prolific nature, we must infer
  8. a sinister not to say imperialistic

  9. grand design. Perhaps you've regarded,
  10. as beneath your notice, armies of mangrove
  11. on the march, roots in the air, clinging
  12. tendrils anchoring themselves everywhere?

  13. The world is full of shoots bent on conquest,
  14. invasive seedlings seeking wide open spaces,
  15. matériel gathered for explosive dispersal
  16. in capsules and seed cases.

  17. Maybe you haven't quite taken in the
  18. colonizing ambitions of hitchhiking
  19. burrs on your sweater, surf-riding nuts
  20. bobbing on ocean, parachuting seeds and other

  21. airborne traffic dropping in. And what
  22. about those special agents called flowers?
  23. Dressed, perfumed, and made-up for romancing
  24. insects, bats, birds, bees, even you –

  25. – don't deny it my dear, I've seen you
  26. sniff and exclaim. Believe me, Innocent,
  27. that sweet fruit, that berry, is nothing
  28. more than ovary, the instrument to seduce

  29. you into scattering plant progeny. Part of
  30. a vast cosmic program that once set
  31. in motion cannot be undone though we
  32. become plant food and earth wind down.

  33. They'll outlast us, they were always there
  34. one step ahead of us: plants gone to seed,
  35. generating the original profligate,
  36. extravagant, reckless, improvident, weed.