How could I spend myself, seed, root, and gardener,
To someday look up and see the tree grown from me?
This is a vital self-deception, a delusion of choice,
Less a plea and more a deliverance.
Who should carry me forward through history?
What shoulders ought to bear the weight of
This ponderous name, this mouthful of dirt?
What could ever have grown in this garden
But weeds and thorns and bitter poison?
In this fulgurite waste, stricken by some God,
There's no hope but the barrel of His gun.
What monster could feed this to a child?
Better an ever-fallow field than a compost grave.