Poetry: Poem Untitled

The flutter of struggling wings must have stirred the dust
Or flocked your windows with pollen.
How else did you not see
Things were changing all along.

We were all suffering.
We didn’t forget you.
We only wanted the liberty to grow alongside —
You are the ones who rejected us.

For hundreds of years we have been shoved
Into dustbins and cesspools and landfills and
Stuffed in the cracks in the concrete you laid over the living land.

And when life and joy were drawn up
From the depths of the soil still rich and loving
Waiting for us beneath your waste piles;
When leaves sprouted and buds reached up

You criticized the way in which we bloomed.

You want your change to scour.
You want your lawns clipped just this tall.
You want your concrete pale and smooth.

But we will sign our names in the borders.
Our fallen leaves will be fossil-marks in your surface.

We want our change to flourish.
We want concrete next to asphalt next to leaf-strewn
dirt paths next to lanes of wild, untrammeled exuberance.

We will not stay seeds.
If you stomp the bloom, the roots will spread.
We will crumble your foundation.
We will find our way into the sun.

Hand in hand, root
and leaf, bud and bloom together —

We take our space.

 

(@2016 risawolf. Feel free to share but please credit.)