How Like The Plants We Are

Or (Lines Composed at Jackson Square, New Orleans)
(My attempt to keep a metaphor going for as long as possible.)
by Michele T. Fry,  April, 1992

I cannot help but notice, as I sit here in the breeze
Along the river banks at Jackson Square in New Orleans,
O'erflowed with flowers, product of some visionary's dream,
How amazingly alike the plants and tourists are beneath.

Both put much energy into making of themselves such vivid flowers.
Asymmetry and natural curves make many a fine design
But onto these we sprig contrived devices of our own.
We hybridize, to colorize and lengthen lines,
To captivate with sweeter scents and subtler charms.

Adorned with these, we throng the avenues,
Line the bars, decorate sidewalk café’s, populate the beaches,
Fill the dance pavilions, ski resorts and malls throughout the world
As if by some unspoken signal we all know
To sow ourselves in public places.

With every size and shape and textured hue of specie turning out,
En masse, we make Parisian garden-like displays
(as Renoir caught in paintings, and Monet)
for all the passersby to see and smell and marvel at.
We energize a view, as flowers do!

We share other similarly deep-implanted impulses, too!
For whether bold or shy, bedecked in gaiety or drab,
Preferring sun or partial shade,
Outside in open air, or tucked away on some small patio,
According to our natures, in our seasons,
We all bloom and preen and bask in ways
that strive to make a statement for our kind.

We flutter in a gentle breeze
Or revel in a drizzling rain, or limp along in summer’s heat.
We open wide to show the world our centers
Or close up tight, as some mysterious guidance bids us do.
The undertow’s the same for us as for the flowers.
We strive to make connections! Find a mate! Pollinate!

Then happenly, without knowing why or how or when (it siddles up so fast)—
Lifeforce finds it’s way down that oh so subtle phallopian tube
And hits its mark dead on! Fertilization! Boom!
Rose hips swell wide, as hearts in love do.

None can stop the wheel’s spin now.
Everything goes ‘round and ‘round.
Bellies bulge.
Meanings change.
Wisdom dawns.
Vivid petals fade, wilt, drop brown to the ground.
Outer beauty spent,
Our cosmic purpose is just now begun.

Without a further conscious thought we’re drawn to selfless nurturing
And harboring little seeds within the bosom of parental love,
Blinded now to all but bearing firm and healthy fruit,
Green foliage, we discover, is noble, quiet, cool –
Beneath which many a wilted flower meets its end
And finds it’s rest-bed soothing, and satisfying too.

We look around and notice now—the countryside is green,
And lush and more becoming than we heretofore had seen.
We spread our roots to gather food and anchor down.

 

Holding soil and seedlings close our only aim,
Some wise and unseen hand now works its Will
To serve a purpose greater than our own.
We are become the Caretakers Of Earth.
For quite a while, we freshen up the air,
And reinforce the world with jungle shade.

And so the cycle goes. For there comes at length a time
When we begin to feel the strain of parenting, to feel the urge
To heave forth from our bosom all our seeds,
To let them flutter out upon the breeze,
Away from us, to give us room, to let us breathe.
They’ve grown too cumbersome to hold.
We’re feeling old. Somehow repulsed.
We must be free to live what life is left to us, and so,
Regardless of their fate, we let them go.

Or if, by some misguided gene
We try and hold our offspring close beyond their time—
Raw nature has an over-riding plan more far-reaching than ours.
For it has plugged into each youth an impulse stronger than our own—
Each ripened seedling wants to scatter from its mother plant
And make it on its own.

So strong this pull that with hooks or fins, or colors bright
It beckons unto bird or bear to eat it whole,
Or tries to sink its burrs into the fur of any passers-by
To be dropped off only God knows where.
Or maybe it attempts to catch a breeze
And spiral willy-nilly ‘cross the green—
(a seed will use whatever device it can to tear itself from home)—
to try and root itself elsewhere
and grow a flower of its own.

We know not how, or even whether they will live.
We watch incredulously on as youngsters preen,
And parade their stupid vanity for all the world to see.
With little thought for us or future cares,
They throng in public places (as we did),
And display gorgeous flowers!
They can’t explain. They know not why.
Impulse is their only guide.
But we've grown wise. We see beyond pretentious, youthful lies.
We know exactly why. It’s to connect! Attract a mate!

And so our seedlings scatter o’re the world,
and mix in vats of pollen,
‘Til they die untimely deaths.
Or if they count among survivors
They will pollinate themselves and swell around their middles,
And drop their flowers off,
And finally join their elders in the background green.

It’s then they offer up a kind of reverence for their parents—
They’ve followed in our footsteps. They understand us now.
And while they’re praising us by turning green,
We may begin to primp again, and preen—
To heed some inner call, some deep-driv’n need
To have another go at youth ourselves. To stage another show.

Are we annuals or perennials?
Can we repeat that floral scene?
Is our path a chosen one, or in our genes?

Who can say what moves a being,
But in that jocund company at Jackson Square
Came crystal clear to me that stripped of all our
Conversation, education, legislation
Theorizing, visualizing, prostelitizing,
Organizing, agonizing, and all the other Human things we do—
When taken just by primitive and underlying themes, on par,
How essentially like the plants we humans are!