Roots
©1981

Flowering petal of human spirit
Drops to the earth so loud you can hear it.
Down an urbanly street winds blow it away
And it doesn't have a choice, not even a say.

Fallen leaves in Spring's grand repose
Exist in a world, tho' have died I suppose.
Like the flowering petal, they're raked and they're needed
Until Spring returns to be spread and then seeded.

The chance they'll live a full, normal life
Are cut short with the thought of a sharp florist's knife.
Yet there are some which grow on to live old
While others of priceless coloramma are sold.

Survive in a house in a potful of soil
Heating to boiling point by woodstove or oil.
Glassed in by windows of plasticene sheet
Wishing they had the will to grow feet.

Potted in soil, no room and no water
Won't have a mother and can't have a father,
Existing only by the luck of the seed;
"And to think that they thought I was only a weed!"

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