Please do not water this flower garden.
The seeds are shards of glass, jagged edges
planted in shallow soil, pushing upward,
hardy from discontent, hoping to pierce
anything bare. Fertile climate for growth,
the heat of rhetoric feeds red raw bloom.
The hammer and sickle are buried here
in our fruited plains that we hold so dear.
A darkness grows beneath the eagle’s plume,
division becomes the unspoken oath.
Shattered cultivation can be so fierce
when planted patriotism becomes blurred
in the hate that is rooting in the hedges.
Please do not water this flower garden.
Poet’s note: This poem is in response to Twitter and Facebook having identified accounts that were meant to sow political unrest during the U.S. presidential election. For some reason, this made me think of fertile soil, an environment ripe for dangerous seeds to root and bloom.
Read More:
Twitter removed 200 Russian accounts that targetted Facebook users during election [USA Today]
Twitter, with accounts linked to Russia, to face Congress over role in election [The New York Times]
Karen Shepherd is a public school special education administrator who lives with her husband and two teenagers in the Pacific Northwest. Her poems and fiction have been published in riverbabble, Literally Stories, CircleShow, Sediments Literary Art Journal (coming August 2017) and The Society of Classical Poets (coming September 2017).
Image found on Flickr by Nigel.
