Cracks

Two months have passed since my report on the few street plants tough enough to survive in Laramie in February.  But now it’s spring, and I’m sure that a strong urge to grow is swelling in many seeds hiding in cracks and crannies in concrete and asphalt.  Probably fresh young shoots are already out, determined to enjoy their moment in the sun.

But I’m not there to see it.  Instead, I’m in Grand Junction, Colorado.  Of course street plants are just as common here as in Laramie, and the growing season is much further along, so I had no trouble finding material for Lucy Corrander’s April street plants gathering.  [In fact I had too much. See Urban Plants, Urban Rocks: Premiere!]

This post is special – it's a collaboration.  My host wrote a poem for the occasion!

Cracks

by Danny Rosen

Between signing the agreement—and implementation

stands a gulf where persistence reigns. In a dry land

awash in weapons, things work out best

when the day listens to the Sun.

Slowly, men continue to learn how to speak

to women, and develop new capabilities to achieve

a competitive edge; new modes of perseverance.

Cracks form – even where the Sun shines only

three hours a day in late Spring. Weeds peek, climb,

suck vague moisture, move minute nourishments

through peristaltic pressures that, squeezing for light,

widen cracks in sidewalks and life. Cracks

cracked by a fibrous yearning and racing

against Summer’s descending clock; green

shoots break apart hard rock: Persistence

is a helpless choice; first comes water, then comes ice.

Danny Rosen is a poet in Fruita, Colorado.  His poems have appeared recently in San Pedro River Review, Comstock, Fruitapulp, Pilgrimage, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Malpais Review.  After working in geology, astronomy and education, Danny decided that making books would be a most useful endeavor.  He lives among dogs in the desert of western Colorado, where he runs the Lithic Press.