Wild Mustard
For three palpably rain-saturated May days,
Driving a daydream, between Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana,
All I've been seeing, breathing, conceiving
Has been vibrant orange-flowering wild mustard,
That beguiling siren-weed, which, within weeks, days,
Will be plowed under, to make way for life-feeding crops,
My eyes gathering in the endless acres of blurry orange hues,
Inhaling, luxuriantly, lustily,
The humidity-thick visual scent of spring's incipience.
Though I know that, on my next passage through this land,
I'll be inundated by an ocean of seven-foot cornstalks
And soybean-green seas of lush fecundity,
I wish, wistfully, I could hold at bay the metamorphosis
On the verge of sweeping these weeds into earthen oblivion,
Keep the grains from choking out my prized plants,
I sole proprietor of this rural domain
Three states wide, deep, seething, and orange,
Who'd let daydreaming's wild mustard overgrow his soul.
05/15/11 - (2)
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