Seedlings (a poem)

Seedlings

we plant seeds like the deeds we forget

to tend like the weeds we need to understand

beauty. weeds are beautiful in the same way

destruction is beautiful. like bleeding

from the prick of a needle. like warnings

we forget to heed. like excavators

of greed. that’s us. we should listen

to our own creed. but we never believe

our promises to achieve. when i was thirteen

we planted trees. i was in desperate need

of a friend. not someone who wanted me to like

pop songs and shopping sprees and to always agree.

having travelled the seas and run out of pleas

i didn’t know then what i would one day see.

now i’ve sown my seeds and i am

rooted among a forest of others like me.

[Originally published by Blue Marble Review.]