Invasive elements
Crowd out natural spaces
Natural species
Disrupting micromacro webs
Lifeforces
Grown over ages
Interconnected
Eradication of invaders is hard
Next to impossible
Seedpods scattered in the rocky earth
Remain viable
Good to grow
For 60 years or more
So that even if we totally got rid of today’s plants
Countless more would spring up from the ground
Over and over
Like evil minions in ancient myths
Still, we persist
Fighting back
Pulling
Clipping
Hauling away
Even if it’s futile
Its right
So we fight
Stare down defeat
Even if
Inevitable
David Trudel © 2012
Lawn
This is for the forgotten rocks that used to adorn this place
And for the buried moss that used to soften their sharp edges
This is for the rolling meadows that undulated from shore to peak
Carpeted with purple camas blossoms that weren’t merely decorative
But part of the food chain
This is for all those variations
Blown up and smoothed away
Made level so that we could roll out more ubiquitous lawn
Colonizing originality with green banality
We have made preemptive strikes against authenticity
Tagging the earth with neon green invaders
Which we mow and trim and water and feed
So much trouble for nothing much
For a crop we don’t eat or use except to display dominator status
Reaching for a reflection of noblesse oblige
Borrowing the suggestion of nobility from squandering fecund fields
For rolled sameness, green lameness
In the pool table flatness that surrounds us
We no longer see nature because we’ve suppressed it
We draw comfort in our control
Seeking the eradication of variety and surprise
For mono-cultured submission
Into the green blanket of conformity
David Trudel © 2013
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Tagged as beauty, blank verse, colonization, community, conformity, creative writing, creativity, ecology, environmentalism, free verse, inspiration, invasive species, landscaping, lawns, metaphor, natural history, poetry, social commentary