Homegrown Poems | Christine M. Du Bois

Homegrown Hope

I keep cats away from the catbirds, and commercial chemicals away 
from my columbine. I cherish my native sedge grass,
my cardinals and cardinal flowers, my maidenhair ferns.
I leave all the leaf litter under the boxelder maple, 
because, really, are the leaves mine to move?
Whose planet is this anyway?
I let the acorns fall all around under the oak,
and I reap the reward of squirrel antics.
When I trim a bush grown too near my house,
I consign the clipped branches to expand 
my backyard stick pile, where somebody—a possum, I suspect—
fashioned a fine den at the bottom. 
I don’t peer in with a flashlight. And I don’t harass my caterpillars—
because if I kill them, I’ll be killing
baby chickadees. Squishy, gooey caterpillars are —
chickadee baby food!  On summer evenings, I celebrate 
shiny beetles and pollen-pushing bumblebees,
and once I spied a brilliant orange newt.
We city humans “oooh” and “aaah” over colors and acrobatics
at galleries and concerts and half-time shows, 
and the décor at cute eateries, but Nature 
is the best painter, the most crazy-creative entertainer,
if you let it all alone, and discover how to listen, 
and look. The wilder I let my little yard remain,
just letting plants and insects and birds and mammals
who belong here 
have space to do their thing here,
live their lives here, right here in my yard, here—
the wilder I find my joy, musing on this multiplex, this Noah’s ark 
of crawling, flying, ambling, yowling, nibbling, 
thriving creatures in my humble, 
natural little yard, my little piece of Eden, 
my own, homegrown, national park.

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Too many poems

There are too many poems about nature,
they say,
but it’s human nature to say that.
What does Nature say?
Nature converses in kaleidoscopes 
of fall leaves pirouetting; 
in tranquil ponds whose cattails stretch
to paint the sky;
in embroidered lacey snowflakes;
in epic poems of warbling wrens.
Her secret message everywhere 
is that there are too many poems
about humans.
And too many critics.
Nature votes for more crickets.

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©2022 Christine M. Du Bois
All rights reserved

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