24 March 2023

Buttercups


Let me tell you a story of the old ways

Can you hear me?  Adjust your shells,

I’ll wait.

We used to have extensions related to

a form of com’utics  called sensation.

Look and see where sound sensors—ears—

were located, one on each side of the head.

We had another mid-face—nose—which

paired with ears to bring the outside in

to us.  You can imagine how such useless

appendages caught on and damaged the

ecosystem we move through by wasting

our time on empathy for our competitors.

Turn in place with gratitude!  Notice how

the fog ash of your wastes lifts, applauds

and readies moist nourishment for you!

Open your pores and you will receive!

That is the joy of our new world where

no waste exists but only food, no distance

but only here, no rhyme but what a shell

can read.  Can you imagine open vistas of

uncertainty and multiple species proclaiming

their own beauty?  Overloading killed many.

But we survive to tell the stories, and story

reveals the folly of the old.  It hurt to

remove my ears, but what a relief to my

existential suffering, and look—what

designs they gave me with my healing!

I am a double buttercup!  Imagine how

the flies love that!  How sad that no one

has the operation and the tattoo anymore!

This little touch of color is like a precious

stone—I’ll tell you that story next time.

Time for me to refresh.  I will dig my toes

deep into the muck while you float and bob.

Ah, children, such energy.



Written in 2013, I'm reposting "Buttercups" for earthweal's The Age of Loneliness.  The poem was inspired and posted 
for "Kerry's Wednesday Challenge ~ Worldbuilding" at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads. See the original HERE.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

2 comments:

  1. I love how you gave voice to the buttercups!

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  2. This is very clever - and ominous. "Adjust your shells" makes me picture an evolutionary trajectory where we are gone and cockroaches remain. I am glad this future has buttercups in it........I love the tone of voice in this poem - "ah, children, such energy." Made me smile.

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