Another Fucking Nature Poem Pondering the Reason for Existence 

​Poetry

Originally published in Black Fox 

November 2021

Another Fucking Nature Poem Pondering the Reason for Existence
 
I don’t know how to label
this kind of pain. It’s not
the dark, endless abyss of space
constricting my airway
like I’m used to. In those
moments I don’t mind
 
if an eighteen-wheeler were to paint
my insides along the curb in front of my
house, my organs stuck
to the asphalt
like moist confetti.
 
Instead, I feel like the golden poppies
outside my window—stuck in the ground
between uneven pieces of desert-dry
wood chips rooted
in that spot
despite reaching
desperately
across the earth
to climb
 
out. Forced to do nothing
but watch the world and grow
at the gardener’s mercy.
 
The pattern is the same every day:
 
     Wake up.
               Get older.
                         Sleep.
 
In my waking hours
I reach my leaves across
the lawn in hopes that I’ll find
some goal that leads to some prize
at the end if I’ve won. My leaves thirst
in the sun, dwindling yellow
in their exhaustion
and I know the gardener will cut
 
off my ends soon. But I persist in my quest
to find my goal as the street is quiet,
as the ants go about their burrowing business,
wishing I had a purpose like theirs--
          collecting resources for the survival
          of the species--
then withering as I realize I do.