I'll burn you all like your stumps,
          cutting you lower than you define.


You thought you were surpassing
         maturating high with fake

                               terminology that

        never matured more than a seed
                      of contemplation.

Your dead before you reach my height,
                limp stumps brittle to the flow

of my breath..

windswept failings, your just a seed
                dead in the wind of change.

But the only thing you fall is fake...


          I'll grow beyond your seeds of discontent.

           Watch my syllables plant in the young,
                    growing in height that you never

clipped, every word is nourishment that is
                neither an ego to grow.


But I1'l grow with every sentence read.
         your my wind, gusting me to new

Ground to fertilise the metaphors of nourishment
              that i feed to the masses, no pesticides
                   were used in the growth of this word.

I see them in the evening
echolocate after gnats
as they dart and dive for micro-prey
our night sky is alive with bats.

They clear away mosquitoes
never seeming to alight
and make it safer here below
these tireless workers of the night

I am fearful for their future
as we use our toxic sprays
for as we spray mosquitoes
we poison those who call them prey

Still the acrobatics thrill me
in their nightly hunt for gnats
and I hope for many years to come
our nights will be alive with bats

Cori MacNaughton
(July/Aug?) 1999