late spring snow
glazes hyacinths
pink to white
hands deep in cool earth
making room for lily bulbs
I am planting spring
one more species gone
still, the earth is our mother
and she will forgive
this format
does not suit my voice
constricting
They say
we could feed a nation
with food we throw away
perhaps
the hemisphere
with the grain and soy
we force-feed cows
injected with Prolisac
then wonder
why 10-year-old girls have breasts
their mothers didn’t sprout until 13
still, we eat our beef
fattened on genetically-twisted corn
with fries on the side
cut from potatoes
whose leaves
kill any bug
brave enough to take a nibble
faster than DDT
so does the world want
our leftovers?
It might be more sane
to burn them.
**Prolisac is the trade name for rBGH
like pieces of sky
small blue finches still their flight
leaves that fly away
chattering water
circles here and slows, learning
the deep still of sleep
this praying mantis
still on the garden path, knows
patience brings bounty
reinventing joy
renovation peels away
layers of old pain
cherry trees, once bare
cover themselves in petals
pink renovation
in renovation
only the surface changes
the core is constant
Susan Daniels Poetry 