[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday poem
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 23:08:32 -0700
Victory
The clay has dried, ceased sucking.
Across the way straggling poppies droop.
A fir weeps sap from winter wounds.
Torn, wacked weeds sag in the new, fierce heat.
In peaceful shade I stumble on an enemy snake lurking in the rotting bin.
People say you should be kind to them, but I recall this one's taste for
garden worms and think,
"Thumbs down, sorry chum, salute and die."
Sans worms, the gourmands of compost, ruin,
the key to earth's victories, slows.
So poor dead-headed flowers,
unfortunate mown-down clover,
what's left of flat, bent daffs,
bolted parsley,
volunteers,
roots of failed roses,
winter-pruned apple limbs,
innumerable clippings and cuttings from bushes,
drowned and assaulted slugs,
flung bugs,
ex-beetles by the score,
even the liquid leavings of smooshed greenflies,
combining in an ooze,
demand this snake must also join
the decomposition, the deconstruction, the Totenschlag,
that victorious blooms may come.
My shovel poised, I prepare to kill.
A sudden pollen burst runs up my nose.
I sneeze.
The snake escapes, instinct behaves.
No matter. Tomorrow I'll be out again,
patrolling high above.
With god-like dirty hands I aim, in company with rain,
at summer glory, emerging from this wrack and pain.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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