Survival

     Where soil is dry
     redcedars thrive,
     weather inhospitable,
     no one looking.

     Invading
     unplowed fields, grasslands, true
     to their youth-producing roots--juniperus --
     their berry-like seeds' dormancy removed,
     all inhibitors, by the scouring action
     of bird-gut.

     Prolific as a weed, the familiar
     breeding contempt.  Sprouting anywhere,
     the strange and twisted life of flora.
     The evergreen an ecologist loves to hate,
     watching them ignite, explode when burning
     to manage prairies.

     Yet their maze of shapes,
     their common purple shadows draw
     the inland eye.  Driving the Plains in winter,
     I can't help but notice
     their wind-battered limbs, clinging
     to some grand obtuse scheme.

     Small fauna
     taking refuge in its cover, yielding its food
     when all else is depleted.  Why is it, then,
     in our street-wisdom, in our what-we-do-mind,
     we prefer a tendril of the exotic, the world
     of orderliness?

          Nature favors adaptation,
     the ability to survive.  When I grow weary,
     bone-tired, of rivalry, I travel to the ice-floe river,
     listen, stand on its rocky bank,
     admire the stench of one maverick
     stiff-needled seedling.


     Twyla Hansen  (Click for bio.)


      


            Current Issue | Mystic No. 3 Contents |