Bless the Grass & Curse the Weeds

Poetry — By Brett Taylor on October 21, 2012 at 5:00 am

I walk the way paved before me
life curls green fingers through cracks
in joyful upheaval
blades of grass are not alone, but
stand in solidarity with green pariahs:
Dandelion, purslane,
lambs quarters, burdock, and sorrel,
the cursed and persecuted ones of
American lawn
side by side with ones ‘God blessed’
their leafy tendrils intermingling in
one giant mass
bursting through a destructive equilibrium.
Shattering everything they’ve worked so hard to ‘create.’
Is this why they hate them?
The ones wild in nature, the edible ones that
tamper with any serene sense of balance,
any perceived environmental leverage.
With them there is no flat surface
no smooth and easy road to death.
With them there is no American lawn,
no sterile room, no formula.
I hesitate on drawing the analogy, but the fierceness
with which they are persecuted and chemically poisoned,
the intensity of contempt
the persistent attempts at eradication.
It looks like genocide.
I walk the way paved before me
and stumble on a crack.
There the Warsaw ghetto uprising is playing out again in history
The song sung from below
is of joyful upheaval.
“S’vet a poyk ton undzer trot: mir zaynen do!”¹

¹ This is a line from Hirsh Glick sung in memory of the Holocaust to commemorate the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis. It’s English translation is, ”Our step beats out the message: we are here!”