Some Need Milkweed

On a table in a wintered garden

that once fluttered with Monarchs

sits a vessel with dead Poinsettias

and the decadence of dried decay.

The chill of death drove them away

from a spread of infinite Isms

and microcosmic indifferences.

They flew for survival.

They flew to be immune from the spasms

of neglect and social starvation.

Self was swallowed unless they migrate

and lay the eggs of progeny in warm wait.

Their thirst was watered and cocooned,

muffled from the noises carried on the winds

from a window’s skyscraper-

protected from the vortex of voices

that drown the one into none.





Poetry by melanie sue
Read 760 times
Written on 2014-01-10 at 17:39

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I fell into the extended metaphor of this, letting go of the exterior of the poem and finding something which made sense to me in the interior of it.
2014-01-11


countryfog
This is stunningly good Melanie, almost every line has a phrase that is perfectly resonant. At the back of the property here is a wire fence and all summer the milkweed climb it, the pods greening and then browning and opening, the seeds lifting and swirling as the butterflies do, a scene I visit most every day. So nice now in the "dead" of winter to see it all again in your poem.
2014-01-11



Your writings are very organic, bringing the biological world to life. I have planted milkweed to attract the Monarchs, as they face the possibility of quick extinction. They travel this way and stop to lay their eggs, when they are able. I enjoyed this.
~Ashe
2014-01-11