Rage, rage

This haibun is in response to Jilly’s day 8 quote from Jim Harrison.

“So I sit on the edge, wagging my feet above the abyss”

~ Jim Harrison

MayMist2

There are some who rage at the needless breaking of a branch, the digging of a den and the baiting of babies—just some animal’s, you understand. Some will march and petition for the purity of water, the saving of an old horse, or outrage at the hecatomb of the bees to line pockets with gold and the votes of farmers. And there are some who whistle as the dry wind blows away their topsoil in a cloud of sterile dust.

 

Beauty in dry stalks

seedbearers of tomorrow—

none so blind.

Published by

Jane Dougherty

I used to do lots of things I didn't much enjoy. Now I am officially a writer. It's what I always wanted to be.

32 thoughts on “Rage, rage”

    1. Thanks Jilly. We’ve just had the municipal hedge trimmer pass by for the second time this year, smashing its stupid way through the perfectly inoffensive hedge and oak trees, and cutting down the poppies before they’ve had time to set seed. On the one hand we are told (and I’m a believer) that plant species like the field poppy are getting to be rareties because of use of pesticides and early mowing of grass verges, and then you get some municipal idiot sending a tractor out to mow down everything in sight! Sheer idiocy.

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      2. Motorists love it because it destroys everything that might be a distraction, and home owners with manicured lawns love the town council getting rid of unslghtly weeds for them.

      3. Good grief! Glad you wrote the poem, Jane; it needs to be said. About 30 years ago they stopped mowing certain areas in most US states until after the wildflowers are finished. Right now the median of our main road has longer than normal grass and a riot of something yellow dancing in the breeze. I love that part!

      4. When people are surrounded by nature they don’t value it. It’s the city people who push for conservation. Country people want everything neat and tidy.

  4. an impressive list of all the ways we can be frustrated with a need to protest (love he old horse) – an impressive flow to it too – the haiku perfectly captures the illogical municipal moment

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  9. I thought I had commented on this yesterday, but it was our comments on the before the mowing poem. Like Jilly, I like the tone of the paragraph. I, too, despair of people–all the people polled who think the complete mess in the White House is “doing a good job.”
    Your haiku verse is perfect.

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    1. Thanks Merril. Trump, like him or not, represents a hell of a lot of bigots/people. Every country has its Trump. What the rest of us find so intolerable about him is that he represents an idea of the US as global bully boy, gauleiter of the universe. Nobody does anything without US/Trump’s approval. We’d love to tell him to stick his nasty, retarded, reactionary ideas where the monkey shoves his nuts, but America has such an inflated idea of its own importance that he’s liable to drop a bomb on any country that defies him. Please tell your cretinous fellow countrymen and women to grow some brains and vote him out!

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      1. Well, the majority did not vote for him, but I don’t know what’s going to happen. We need the Republican legislators to grow backbones and consciences.

      2. The Trumps of this world when they use democratic process always seem to come to power with a minority vote. Strange, isn’t it? Anyone would think they rigged the system. Surely not!

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