What unusual willowy wheat-like stalks
I exclaimed from the car, stop let’s pick some dig some
Let’s plant them at home, graceful reeds with slanty
drooping heads, lithe and lyrical, let’s put
them in a vase. I wonder what they are called, exotic like desperados.
I skipped across the ditch, took out my clasp knife
Cut dozens of six foot stems and clutched them close.
Aren’t they lovely I asked
my husband agreed
Let’s figure out what they are he queried
Let’s research, investigate, plumb wells of information
Of course I answered, enchanted by his enthusiasm so
We poured over guides of grasses of roadside growings
I found them I shouted
a treasure hunter in a jungle Shangri La, reading
They are phragmites an invasive malignant
grass unwanted unwelcome in this great country
Oh no I said tearing fearing encroaching weeds, so
Gathered up all the stems not one fragment fell upon our
Soil, and tossed the foragings of foreign matter into the trash, bash
Said there you alien things, you had the worst of origins.