How Like The Plants We Are
Or
(Lines Composed at Jackson Square, New Orleans)
(My attempt to keep a metaphor going for as long as possible.)
by Michele T. Fry
Ó April, 1992
I cannot help but notice,
as I sit here in the breeze
Along the river banks at
Jackson Square in New Orleans,
O'erflowed with flowers, product of some visionary's dream,
How amazingly alike the plants and tourists are beneath.
Both put much energy into
making of themselves such vivid flowers.
Asymmetry and natural curves make many a fine design
But onto these we sprig contrived devices of our own.
We hybridize, to colorize
and lengthen lines,
To captivate with sweeter scents and subtler charms.
Adorned with these, we
throng the avenues,
Line the bars, decorate
sidewalk café’s, populate the beaches,
Fill the dance pavilions,
ski resorts and malls throughout the world
As if by some unspoken
signal we all know
To sow ourselves in public
places.
With every size and shape
and textured hue of specie turning out,
En masse, we make Parisian
garden-like displays
(as Renoir caught in
paintings, and Monet)
for all the passersby to
see and smell and marvel at.
We energize a view, as
flowers do!
We share other similarly
deep-implanted impulses, too!
For whether bold or shy,
bedecked in gaiety or drab,
Preferring sun or partial
shade,
Outside in open air, or
tucked away on some small patio,
According to our natures,
in our seasons,
We all bloom and preen and
bask in ways
that strive to make a
statement for our kind.
We flutter in a gentle
breeze
Or revel in a drizzling
rain, or limp along in summer’s heat.
We open wide to show the
world our centers
Or close up tight, as some
mysterious guidance bids us do.
The undertow’s the same
for us as for the flowers.
We strive to make
connections! Find a mate! Pollinate!
Then happenly, without
knowing why or how or when (it siddles up so fast)—
Lifeforce finds it’s
way down that oh so subtle phallopian tube
And hits its mark dead
on! Fertilization! Boom!
Rose hips swell wide, as
hearts in love do.
None can stop the wheel’s
spin now.
Everything goes ‘round
and ‘round.
Bellies bulge.
Meanings change.
Wisdom dawns.
Vivid petals fade, wilt,
drop brown to the ground.
Outer beauty spent,
Our cosmic purpose is just now
begun.
Without a further
conscious thought we’re drawn to selfless nurturing
And harboring little seeds
within the bosom of parental love,
Blinded now to all but
bearing firm and healthy fruit,
Green foliage, we
discover, is noble, quiet, cool –
Beneath which many a
wilted flower meets its end
And finds it’s rest-bed
soothing, and satisfying too.
We look around and notice
now—the countryside is green,
And lush and more becoming
than we heretofore had seen.
We spread our roots to
gather food and anchor down.
Holding soil and seedlings
close our only aim,
Some wise and unseen hand
now works its Will
To serve a purpose greater
than our own.
We are become the
Caretakers Of Earth.
For quite a while, we
freshen up the air,
And reinforce the world
with jungle shade.
And so the cycle
goes. For there comes at length a time
When we begin to feel the
strain of parenting, to feel the urge
To heave forth from our
bosom all our seeds,
To let them flutter out
upon the breeze,
Away from us, to give us
room, to let us breathe.
They’ve grown too
cumbersome to hold.
We’re feeling old. Somehow repulsed.
We must be free to live
what life is left to us, and so,
Regardless of their fate,
we let them go.
Or if, by some misguided
gene
We try and hold our
offspring close beyond their time—
Raw nature has an
over-riding plan more far-reaching than ours.
For it has plugged into
each youth an impulse stronger than our own—
Each ripened seedling
wants to scatter from its mother plant
And make it on its own.
So strong this pull that
with hooks or fins, or colors bright
It beckons unto bird or
bear to eat it whole,
Or tries to sink its burrs
into the fur of any passers-by
To be dropped off only God
knows where.
Or maybe it attempts to
catch a breeze
And spiral willy-nilly
‘cross the green—
(a seed will use whatever
device it can to tear itself from home)—
to try and root itself
elsewhere
and grow a flower of its
own.
We know not how, or even
whether they will live.
We watch incredulously on
as youngsters preen,
And parade their stupid
vanity for all the world to see.
With little thought for us
or future cares,
They throng in public
places (as we did),
And display gorgeous
flowers!
They can’t explain. They know not why.
Impulse is their only
guide.
But we've grown wise. We see beyond pretentious, youthful lies.
We know exactly why. It’s to connect! Attract a mate!
And so our seedlings
scatter o’re the world,
and mix in vats
of pollen,
‘Til they die untimely
deaths.
Or if they count among
survivors
They will pollinate
themselves and swell around their middles,
And drop their flowers
off,
And finally join their
elders in the background green.
It’s then they offer up a
kind of reverence for their parents—
They’ve followed in our
footsteps. They understand us now.
And while they’re praising
us by turning green,
We may begin to primp
again, and preen—
To heed some inner call,
some deep-driv’n need
To have another go at
youth ourselves. To stage another show.
Are we annuals or
perennials?
Can we repeat that floral
scene?
Is our path a chosen one,
or in our genes?
Who can say what moves a
being,
But in that jocund company
at Jackson Square
Came crystal clear to me
that stripped of all our
Conversation, education, legislation
Theorizing, visualizing,
prostelitizing,
Organizing, agonizing, and
all the other Human things we do—
When taken just by
primitive and underlying themes, on par,
How essentially like the plants we humans are!
It flourishes where nothing else survives.
