Crabgrass, wiregrass,

it has all sorts of names;

but it’s all the same —

unwanted.

Like old Ronnie Reagan’s

Borax Mule Team boys,

tough and rugged,

it settles in for the long haul.

 

You have to de-root it.

Eradicate it     completely.

 

But the roots run deep.

One can waste many an hour

well into an entire day,

trying to extricate

this dragon of the yerba-world —

one of Nature’s stoutest survivors.

 

Such was my case late one Summer’s day,

digging, pulling, yanking and jerking

deep-rooted Lemongrass,

pulling them out from their tenacious ties

to the underworld of the chthonic gods.

 

Working on my second pair of gloves, 

I heard it.

At first, I thought it a semi-truck

drawing down upon our residential street.

Strange though,

semis are not allowed in our neighborhood.

 

Then, I thought of a helicopter –

medi-vac choppers often race across my backyard sky    

unchecked, unchallenged, completely unstoppable.

 

The progression of rumble and grumble    heightened,

rock and roll, 

until the mums where dancing in their pots.

 

When it was over,

the birds instantly began chirping,

Shocked,

for I hadn’t even notice their mass silence.

That confirmed it — an earthquake!

Stopped, 

my two dogs bolted out the dog door

running towards me,

begging me  — not for biscuits —

but for my cessation

to the molestation

of the chthonic gods.

 

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Copyright © 2011 Marvin Loyd Welborn. All Rights Reserved.