Green Blades

I was alive

once a seed in

the darkness of the dirt

hidden away from daylight

A blade of grass

seems such an insignificant creation

but that was my destiny to be

that is what I was proud to be

Rain came and went

as frequently as the sunshine

I sprouted and grew taller

day by day

Of course I wasn't the first

and everyone else seemed taller than me

when the breeze came up at sundown

the blades wouldn't stop lashing me

Time past

sometimes slow and sometimes fast

and just like that

the season was on its way out

Now I shuddered in the cold

for a time until

the farmers came

with their sickles and blades

A new sound was added to the wind

the swish swish

of the blade as it past through

leaving behind our fallen friends

And just like that

I was severed from my root

left where I fell

on the sloping hillside

I struggled to breathe

I began to fade at once

I fought to find the life in the earth

but could not move

And so the farmers mowed the grass

as far as eye could see

there was hardly nothing left

but the bodies lying about for miles

Then came the forks and rakes

and we were loaded onto the cart

thousands of us

in one huge scoop after the other

I was hot and dry when they finally

dumped us in a clearing

and I knew whatever future I had

it wouldn't be lasting long

Hay, you ask?

To see the cows through winter?

I can think of worse roles

for my kind to play

I was sure I was dead already

or just as good as

bound tightly with my fellows

parched in the noon sun

Dying or dead

one or the other

but I could hear the crunch

of farmer's boots on gravel

He held a light in his hand

at the end of a long stick

children giggled and ran

laughing at our helplessness

I felt the heat of fire

It felt like the sun had come too close

he plunged the stick into our sides

so commence the execution

What life was left inside us

the flames burned it out

they flew up and down our bodies

until we collapsed in black pieces

The ashes on the ground

blacker than the starless sky

our pitiful remains

trampled and spread for the goodness of earth

In the name of nature

that cycle of life that cannot stop for me

winds of night

carried me away through the smoke

And know that for all the fire

farmers' blades and forks

we will always be

where you don't want us.