~JARED
CARTER~
WEED-EATER
It is someone's revenge—but whose?
Custer
was shaved this close by Crazy Horse,
the bluster
of the Young Pretender's troops
smoothed out
in 'Forty-Five. At Marathon,
the rout
of fleeing Persians scythed like
weeds. Dry grass,
things that grow out of cracks—and
in one pass
the plastic string eliminates all
doubt:
whatever was, is not. There
is no shout,
no cry, only a whirring, distant
drone,
since, safety-conscious, you in
phones
of silence clad your tender ears.
With eyes
protected too, you bear down on
the prize
of further stalks. You give
it gas: it huffs
and puffs, and ghostly dandelions
and rough
green matter disappear. Plant
Waterloo,
a Pickett's Charge of leaves.
A god, who
waves this wand: see how the very
dust
is blown away. By this, mad
Blake's mistrust
at last made manifest: from Newton's
side
God took this awful thing, and now
the hide
it tans is yours. The leaves
disintegrate,
the fuel is gobbled up. Only
the State
remains, that which is clean and
orderly,
and lacking root or branch: the
plastic tree.
© by Jared Carter
