That crawled over and crushed the neighbors fence,
Those sweet white and yellow flowers curling under
The metal mes. It was like those lazy dogs
That lay under your feet for years.
They just get fatter and more fragrant.
The time came when we had to cut it back.
Thin green vines had ripened until they became
Thick woody branches, full of water, so heavy
That it all slumped dangerously into our yard,
Threatening to lay waste to the boundaries
That make living life in suburbia better
Than whatever it was people did in the cities.
Though we fought the sugary intruder with courage
There was no stopping its whirling, crazy courage
There was no stopping its whirling, crazy assault.
The flower power was killer. We wanted to get the roots,
Throw a shovel at it till it cried mercy, but
They were over the line, Wat do you do to a plant
That refuses to stay where it's planted,
That refuses to play nice with the fence?
There ought to be laws against nature,
Thistles and all, from making itself such a nuisance.
Then again, I guess we did go a bit far. Perhaps,
Thoroughly too far with the poison idea.
That was a catastrophe waiting to happen.
The notion was to spray the damn weed and kill it
Then and there. Herbicide. It rings like homicide only
There's no guilt attached. So we took the stuff,
The herbicide, and sprayed it liberally onto our enemy.
There was no reprieve! No noticeable death except
The young trees in the front yard, the saplings,
That did it for us mostly. After that, only token fights
Then and again were wage. It had won and now even
The consolation of its nectar was denied to us, since
The residual toxins might do us more damage
Than it ever did to the flowers. It's sad we fought them so.
They didn't turn ugly like most vines I know.
