Pod of the Milkweed Calling all bu*terflies of every race From source unknown but from no special place They ever will return to all their lives, Because unlike the bees they have no hives, The milkweed brings up to my very door The theme of wanton waste in peace and war As it has never been to me before. And so it seems a flower's coming out That should if not be talked then sung about. The countless wings that from the infinite Make such a noiseless tumult over it Do no doubt with their color compensate For what the drab weed lacks of the ornate. For drab it is its fondest must admit. And yes, although it is a flower that flows With milk and honey, it is bitter milk, As anyone who ever broke its stem And dared to taste the wound a little knows. It tastes as if it might be opiate. But whatsoever else it may secrete, Its flowers' distilled honey is so sweet It makes the bu*terflies intemperate. There is no slumber in its juice for them. One knocks another off from where he clings. They knock the dyestuff off each other's wings - With thirst on hunger to the point of lust. They raise in their intemperance a cloud
Of mingled bu*terfly and flower dust That hangs perceptibly above the scene. In being sweet to these ephemerals The sober weed has managed to contrive In our three hundred days and sixty five One day too sweet for beings to survive. Many shall come away as struggle worn And spent and dusted off of their regalia To which at daybreak they were freshly born As after one-of-them's proverbial failure From having beaten all day long in vain Against the wrong side of a window pane. But waste was of the essence of the scheme. And all the good they did for man or god To all those flowers they pa**ionately trod Was leave as their posterity one pod With an inheritance of restless dream. He hangs on upside down with talon feet In an inquisitive position odd As any Guatemalan parakeet. Something eludes him. Is it food to eat? Or some dim secret of the good of waste? He almost has it in his talon clutch. Where have those flowers and bu*terflies all gone That science may have staked the future on? He seems to say the reason why so much Should come to nothing must be fairly faced.* *And shall be in due course.