Ode to Invasive Species

 

 

You’ll need a cement jaw, gloves of thick raw-

hide and bombproof canvas pants, a sharp spade

maybe a pick to pry soil loose around the base,

 

a mild day after a night of rain to soften their

resolve, an intolerant epithet or two to remind

them who owns the sun and rain, the nutrient-

 

rich loam here merely on loan. Loppers alone

won’t do. You’ll need to grab low, yank and

wrench maybe even dig before roots unscrew

 

their tapered lengths from rhizomatic depths

lukewarm & dark as the womb of a surrogate

who consents to birth but not to motherhood.

 

You’ll need a uniformed conservation corps

of eager unformed youth who won’t connect

the green sweat of just another summer job

 

with an angry mob’s generic objective, who

will hear in their names only the thorn in buck-

thorn, the strife in loosestrife, the knot in knot-

 

weed, the suck in honeysuckle, the Russian

in Russian olive, the false in false indigo, the

heave in tree of heaven. Access to a 24/7 news

 

channel might help, but since your genocide’s

low tech, all you’ll really need is the hook of

a melody’s veiled invective, catchy as Sweet

 

Home Alabama where kudzu runs more rampant

than whatever genus crooned the land back to

sleep after the Centennial Exposition where

 

the miraculous new plant from Japan was first

introduced along with the telephone and type-

writer and their unborn progeny of devices

 

that are now more endemic than air.