If We Disregard the Ditches, How Can We Survive?

Melting snow has exposed winter's detritus, and it is disturbing to see along the country roads I walk. Last summer's debris lingers.

If We Disregard the Ditches, How Can We Survive?

Dips and depressions hold

runoff pockets, pesticides

and herbicides.

Tangled in goosegrass

beside thistles and ragweed

columbine plants poke through.

Scrapped plastic bags flutter

alongside the creeping vine

of Coronavirus.

Bullfrogs, tree frogs and turtles

find refuge here. Deer and fox

dart across the unmarked there.

Swales too shallow to swallow

police injustice reflect the rage

of George Floyd's murder.

Monarch butterflies, gossamer

dragonflies and uneasy neighbors

take flight.

Black-eyed Susans replace False

Indigo. Urbanites eager to escape

flock to cabin country but only add

to the cache of crumpled water

bottles hurling lasting indictments

at people with ears to hear.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor