Invasives
By Danita Dodson
Better the autumn olive growing wild, the kudzu dragging
barns back into earth, the honeysuckle choking
fenceposts—than the fever of a nation shuttering its gates to
human dreams. Better the Johnson grass towering over
barbed wire, the Hungarian brome in ditches, the Nepalese
browntop flaring through fallow fields—than the metal
mouths of B-2s dropped by a madman. Better the red fire
ants swarming, the hairy-tailed mole tunneling beneath the
garden, the sirex woodwasp needling into oaks—than the
muzzling of laughter that once lit living rooms. Better the
foul-sweet blossoms of the Bradford pear, the empress tree
with its fake royalty, the tree of heaven cracking
foundations—than the boots on the ground overtaking cities.
Better the deadnettle carpeting lawns, the spotted knapweed
sprawling, the Chinese lespedeza colonizing
roadsides—than the gerrymandered erasure of communities.
Better the ornamental burning bush gone rogue, the winter
creeper winding tight, the gall wasp swelling branches—than
the whitewashing of history in national museums. Better the
starling’s dark flash at dusk, the gecko skittering glass, the
Cuban treefrog calling from a drain—than the children
counting bodies instead of stars. Let the marmorated stink
bug clatter at window-screens. Let the spotted-wing
drosophila turn sweet fruit sour. Let the fire ant decapitating
fly do its clean work. I will not spend time and money on
pesticides. There are far more critical plagues to name, to
fight, to root out.
Danita Dodson is an educator, literary scholar, and the author of three poetry
collections, Trailing the Azimuth (2021), The Medicine Woods (2022), and Between
Gone and Everlasting (2024), all published by Wipf and Stock. Her poems have
appeared in Salvation South, Tennessee Voices, Braided Way, Women Speak,
Untelling, and elsewhere. She is a native of the Cumberland Gap region of East
Tennessee, where she hikes and explores local history connected to the wilderness. For
more, visit www.danitadodson.com.
Photo credit: Neal Wellons via a Creative Commons license.
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