PLANTS

1. Plants are deceptive. You see them there
2. looking as if once rooted they know
3. their places; not like animals, like us
4. always running around, leaving traces.


5. Yet from the way they breed (excuse me!)
6. and twine, from their exhibitionist
7. and rather prolific nature, we must infer
8. a sinister not to say imperialistic


9. grand design. Perhaps you've regarded,
10. as beneath your notice, armies of mangrove
11. on the march, roots in the air, clinging
12. tendrils anchoring themselves everywhere?


13. The world is full of shoots bent on conquest,
14. invasive seedlings seeking wide open spaces,
15. matériel gathered for explosive dispersal
16. in capsules and seed cases.


17. Maybe you haven't quite taken in the
18. colonizing ambitions of hitchhiking
19. burrs on your sweater, surf-riding nuts
20. bobbing on ocean, parachuting seeds and other


21. airborne traffic dropping in. And what
22. about those special agents called flowers?
23. Dressed, perfumed, and made-up for romancing
24. insects, bats, birds, bees, even you –


25. – don't deny it my dear, I've seen you
26. sniff and exclaim. Believe me, Innocent,
27. that sweet fruit, that berry, is nothing
28. more than ovary, the instrument to seduce


29. you into scattering plant progeny. Part of
30. a vast cosmic program that once set
31. in motion cannot be undone though we
32. become plant food and earth wind down.


33. They'll outlast us, they were always there
34. one step ahead of us: plants gone to seed,
35. generating the original profligate,
36. extravagant, reckless, improvident, weed.