Garden Party 2020
It’s been a dark, dark year, this new year–
the cold and the indifferent killer virus
lurking and striking, instilling dread and silent gloom.
But, at last, at last, in my yard, my salvation in quarantine,
the festivities are in full swing–
glorious eruptions of joy and color, a celebration!
And yet, those crashers, pesky little interlopers
who arrive uninvited and disappear into the crowd,
cling under leafy skirts, crowd against stone and wood
like insecure coeds lining the wall at the dance,
determined to remain unnoticed, blend in.
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I am the eagle-eyed bouncer, the purse-lipped maitre-d’,
forcing out the recalcitrant ones, the malevolent ones who refuse
to leave, planting their stringy tendrils, sharp spiky stalks
and wormy pointed roots deeper and deeper,
hoping I’ll never catch up.
I bend and pull, bend and pull,
I am never finished.
Nature doesn’t want orderly—
She will decide.
And so, around us the garden party pulses,
brighter and ever more vibrant,
the invited ignoring the unwanted, carousing,
happy to drink and dance while they can.
We sit and enjoy the revelers,
happy that the annual bash was not canceled this year,
and that the viral intruder, that aberrance Nature created too,
remains far, far away.
Lynn Wilde lives in Arvada.