I Gather Wildflowers Among Beasts

Vine Wood ~ Agnes Lawrence Pelton, 1913
Fair use, Link ~ Wikipedia

I gather wildflowers
among beasts,
those nameless,
wary watchers
who fear I will
steal spring.

They once
owned Eden,
the prayer path
of migration,
winter before
the melting.

I carry the scent
of humans,
the devastators
who claimed dominion
over all they never owned.

Mother Nature
had warned them
those who speak
with tongues
carried death
on their fingertips.

I’ve only come
to pick wildflowers,
and plant purple hyacinths
as penitence to show my sorrow
humans couldn’t discern
it was they who should
be named beast.

 ©Susie Clevenger 2017

 My late contribution for Earth Day
(Purple Hyacinths are the flower given when you wish to show remorse.) 

#NaPoWriMo2017




Comments

colleen said…
Ah, this goes well with the poem I just read at Kerry's.
Magaly Guerrero said…
"the devastators
who claimed dominion
over all they never owned"

This is such an accurate description of us, humans.
Thotpurge said…
fear I will steal spring.. oh that's so well written.
Jim said…
Right on, Susie--I love that last stanza. Like the dodo bird which became extinct close to 1692. The last bird or nest, no one knows which, was destroyed some time after the last recorded sighting of 1692. But I claim this line, so pretty and intriguing, I would like to have been included, "I gather wildflowers among beasts, those nameless, wary watchers ..."
..
A sweet poem, despite its serious topic. (I didn't know that about purple hyacinths.) I hope our remorse may be in time, and sufficient!
hyperCRYPTICal said…
Wise and wonderful words. Tis true we are the beast...
Anna :o]
Anonymous said…
I can't help but feel = when worlds collide. A bystander struck with reality.
Sanaa Rizvi said…
'I carry the scent of humans, the devastators who claimed dominion over all they never owned'..this is soo haunting!