Alligator Grass

             Summers, in the front edge of our rough field,
                  under the pitchsweat of a blue spruce,
                    some prehistoric grass grew.
                    I never knew the name of it.
                      I called it alligator grass.
 
                      Like spears of asparagus,
                   these spines of hollow straws
                     poked from the moist earth
                          like pick-up sticks.
                     You could snap them apart
                     in diminishing bits then fit
                      each stem together again,
                like fishing rods made from bamboo.
 
                     Lying on shag rugs of moss,
                   I'd watch them clack and sway
              like Roman battalions -- foot soldiers
                     carrying pikes. Touch a stalk
               and you touched the scales of dinosaurs
                 or pterodactyls -- their sails of skin
               out-furled like batwings or umbrellas.
            I bet they flew from Giant to Tahawas in one trip.
 
               Some days, I wonder if we really believe
                            we're going to die.
                       Yet even as I write, I can hear
                           those stiff green bones
                      clicking ominously in the wind.


             Pamela Lee Cranston

     

             *         *          *


             about the poem:

             "I wrote this poem recently after my husband brought home a pot 
             of Horsetail which he bought from the local nursery to plant in our garden. 
             It immediately brought back memories of the Horsetail which grew on our 
             property in the Adirondacks. 'Alligator Grass' is part of a large collection 
             of Adirondack poems which I am preparing for publication called Coming To Treeline."



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