Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Royalty (Color Poem 7)


Royalty
     Purple

When the others whisper about the past,
they remind me I am nothing but a weed.
From where we’ve spread,
I can almost see the old garden
filled with flowers
and the most ethereal are
     the purple tulips
     toad lilies
     meadow rue
     lilac and
     violets.

                     I am younger than the other weeds
                     and I do not understand
                     why we are chopped down
                         stepped on
                     not treated with the care the flowers receive.
                     We are the same color,
                     why can’t we be treated with the same care?

                               They say we are pushed out because we wanted to spread,
                               that we thought if there were more of us,
                               one day we might also be treated with love.
                               But our roots spread too far,
                               and now none of us reach even the edges of the garden.
                               Every year, the roots are all that remain,
                               chopped down to return again the next year.

     We prepare for the day
     that the roaring
          and chopping
          and cutting
          and chattering
     of the weed eater
     tears us apart again.

                                                                                        But this time, the roaring doesn’t come.
                                                                                        All we see is a shadow,
                                                                                        a tall, human shadow,
                                                                                        and then a pale hand and a kind face.

“You’re pretty,”
she says.
Her voice is light,
tinkling like a small bell,
and in her bright smile we know
that finally someone sees us
as more than a mass of
weeds.

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