Old, tired, and full of death.” Not
Too full to write out as much
But dead not too long past that.
One date in the log of men
Who tried to tempt fate and died.
We don’t mourn seeds much, do we?
Life’s plan is to come at death
In such vast swarms of small spores
Death falls back, kills what it can,
But can’t take it all. What’s left
Sends out the next clouds of spores,
The way Spain and France sailed ships
To the New World, more and more,
Dead men’s logs strewn on our shores,
The way the steppe hordes rode waves
On waves through the farms and towns,
The way the first fools who farmed
Raised waves on waves of ripe grains,
Shoved waves of cows, sheep, goats, kids
Through the woods, the way the woods,
The real woods, still shed winged seeds
In the wind, the way this pine
Drops cones on me as I write.
