Horsetails

Horsetails

There is no way to kill them,
Devils guts, they are called

It is little consolation
That dinosaurs brushed by them
In ancient starlight

Nothing halts their advance;
Not even poison

At night I hear them
Breathing under the house
At dawn the spiders come
Sewing the weeds together
With dew

Yet I cannot help but envy
Their fierce determination to live
Even when not wanted,
Not like us
That can sicken from love

They will survive us all
After cities fall
And the sun has spoken

They will survive
In feeble light or
Shade,
Broken asphalt or
Beside silver streams

No use to say
This is not the garden I wanted:
That I wanted poppies to
Dance in the yard like gypsies
Or that I wanted to run to you
Like I did that cold day in the cold mountains
When you wrapped me in your wool
Shirt and said “forever”.

Karen Sykes-Waring