best at F11
Sonnets
Poet Lariat
ECOLOGY
Beneath the ice, the dandelions grow
and under autumn’s rotted leaves, they’re green.
They slyly grasp nutrition under snow
where no light, nary photon, yet has been.
What vibration, sign, has been the start
to activate, a nonce before the time
before the whistle blows, this cheating art?
God only knows; not sun, not heat, not clime.
Weeds’ acute intelligence suffice
to anticipate bizarre conditions,
preserve the precious ointment of its life.
In change, the prize goes to the clever ones.
Thinning ice cap, rising seas, may toll the bell
But creation’s mind knows more than mind will tell.
Poems from the Eighth Decade
Copyright © Harold Macdonald 2004
used with permission