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
I love how you gave voice to the buttercups!
ReplyDeleteThis 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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