Arms Race
Nov 5 2014
The arms race of plants
growing towards the sun.
Vine-wrapped trees,
grasses, poking up.
Green stems, unfurling skyward
their broad leaves, basking in light.
The canopy, high above
is dappled, and sun-warmed.
While here, on the forest floor
it's cool and dark,
organic matter, decomposing
blackened fungi, releasing spores.
The slow trees
are starving, and stunted,
moss clings
to gnarled trunks.
Small animals, by the whites of their eyes
biting insects, busily buzz.
In the darkness, I stumble.
On cold wet ground
that smells earthy, and pungent.
On immoveable boulders
that go all the way down,
the weathered tips
of subterranean mountains
anchored in ancient rock.
This place absorbs sound,
so as loud as I shout
my thinning voice
is swallowed-up.
I am pale, and hungry for sun.
I can only run deeper
or climb my way out.
I read this in a New Yorker article about a magazine start-up called Modern Farmer:
“ “How Modern Farmer came about is she was always rooting out the next thing,” he went on. “I was getting wrapped up with the anarchist farmers. The anarchists farm with no land. They do crop mobs and seed bombs. For a seed bomb, you take a bunch of clay and you put seeds in it, and you bomb it where somebody has told you that you can’t plant.” ”
I enjoyed the article, because I'm always interested in publishing, and I admired its founder's (Ann Marie Gardner) entrepreneurial pluck and vision, her dynamism and creativity. But this small excerpt -- which makes no sense, I know, out of context (and actually, very little in!) -- stayed with me. Not only the anarchistic incongruity of "crop mobs and seed bombs" in the staid context of agriculture, but the idea that plants are driven to germinate and grow in the worst conditions; that seeds will seek out the sun, no matter what. Which is when the phrase "plants always grow towards the sun" came to mind, and which seemed to call for a poem. So I put it down on paper, and started channelling. I had a vision of those stop-motion films of growing plants, where weeks or months are compressed into minutes.
The result has nothing to do with crop mobs, and even less with the article. So if the poem takes a dark turn, blame my subconscious; since I had no idea where it would go, and certainly no plan.
The arms race of plants
growing towards the sun.
Vine-wrapped trees,
grasses, poking up.
Green stems, unfurling skyward
their broad leaves, basking in light.
The canopy, high above
is dappled, and sun-warmed.
While here, on the forest floor
it's cool and dark,
organic matter, decomposing
blackened fungi, releasing spores.
The slow trees
are starving, and stunted,
moss clings
to gnarled trunks.
Small animals, by the whites of their eyes
biting insects, busily buzz.
In the darkness, I stumble.
On cold wet ground
that smells earthy, and pungent.
On immoveable boulders
that go all the way down,
the weathered tips
of subterranean mountains
anchored in ancient rock.
This place absorbs sound,
so as loud as I shout
my thinning voice
is swallowed-up.
I am pale, and hungry for sun.
I can only run deeper
or climb my way out.
I read this in a New Yorker article about a magazine start-up called Modern Farmer:
“ “How Modern Farmer came about is she was always rooting out the next thing,” he went on. “I was getting wrapped up with the anarchist farmers. The anarchists farm with no land. They do crop mobs and seed bombs. For a seed bomb, you take a bunch of clay and you put seeds in it, and you bomb it where somebody has told you that you can’t plant.” ”
I enjoyed the article, because I'm always interested in publishing, and I admired its founder's (Ann Marie Gardner) entrepreneurial pluck and vision, her dynamism and creativity. But this small excerpt -- which makes no sense, I know, out of context (and actually, very little in!) -- stayed with me. Not only the anarchistic incongruity of "crop mobs and seed bombs" in the staid context of agriculture, but the idea that plants are driven to germinate and grow in the worst conditions; that seeds will seek out the sun, no matter what. Which is when the phrase "plants always grow towards the sun" came to mind, and which seemed to call for a poem. So I put it down on paper, and started channelling. I had a vision of those stop-motion films of growing plants, where weeks or months are compressed into minutes.
The result has nothing to do with crop mobs, and even less with the article. So if the poem takes a dark turn, blame my subconscious; since I had no idea where it would go, and certainly no plan.
I've used this trope of the forest floor several times
before; but I think this iteration may be the best yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment