Being, Mustard, Girl

for Olivia Coakley Zender from Her Daddy

Swaying yellow-fingered stands of flowers
Drape the hillsides of our backyard
We venture across wide streets, narrow paths, deep pits,
Into the weedy bouquet of mustard
This floral forest thrice your height
Emanates thick incenses of pollen and saprophytes
We ramble through our hill’s green exhalations
You tunnel the grasping briars delicately, I trample them
Breathing Spring’s hazy effluent, we emerge panting
The meadow primordially painted with baby’s breath and lavender
Unsaddling my shoulders, you set off to Wonderland
A shaggy girl in bloom crowned with golden mustard hair
Boots like mine murder glorious yet nameless rain-forest species
Into silent extinction everyday. How carelessly we pile atop weeds.
Assuming their distant ignorant relatives will not apprehend us
As we nap, quietly crushing everything beneath us with love
Irvine, California
April 6-24, 2003