"Please Don't" by Tony Hoagland

PLEASE DON'T

tell the flowers — they think

the sun loves them.

The grass is under the same

simple-minded impression

about the rain, the fog, the dew

— and when the wind blows,

it feels so good

they lose control of themselves

and swobtoggle wildly

around, bumping accidentally into their

slender neighbors.

Forgetful little lotus-eaters,

solar-powered

hydroholics, drawing nourishment up

through stems into their

thin green skin,

high on the expensive

chemistry of mitochondrial explosion,

believing that the dirt

loves them, the night, the stars —

reaching down a little deeper

with their pale albino roots,

all dizzy

Gillespie with the utter

sufficiency of everything

— they don’t imagine lawn

mowers, the four stomachs

of the cow, or human beings with boots

who stop to marvel

at their exquisite

flexibility and color.         

They persist in their softheaded

   

hallucination of happiness.

But please don’t mention it.

Not yet. So what

if they are wrong? So what

if you are right?

published in The Sun, September 2011