Buttonhole Daisy

Buttonhole Daisy by Odin Roark My city bud and I How we love the long walks Daisy beneath my chin Tucked securely in a buttonhole Me with discovery in my eye Maneuvering ever changing trail signs We walk these precipitous canyons This forest without trees ‘cause that’s what a New Yorker does and if nature be your thing you take it with you My feet tread upon sidewalk and road Concrete and asphalt Candy wrappers and dog doings As safely harnessed in Daisy wriggles for joy Knowing it’s only for a day But it’s her bucket list Together we drink in Vast canyons of rock and nesting pitches Forged atop dry beds Where once flowers and soil aired freely Fowl and beast danced in synchronous survival Unaware evolution’s drumbeat was creating Esplanades of another kind Here where once crept moccasin-feet Ever conscious of disturbing precious surroundings Remain but a buried imprint beneath Urban scree and mountainous bastions Afternoon brings overhead sunshine Peeking into the ravines Where ant-like motion smothers the surface Scurrying left and right Many going nowhere Still the light reaches us Warming our journey Through dens and caves of onlookers Perhaps wondering as well Where did all the trees go? By nightfall Daisy begins to droop her head A long day taking in so much Has left little room for the jungle That darkness of a city’s life Where red and blue lights flash incessantly Alternating with sirens And blasts of police car Urp Urps Giving habitual warning Don’t attack Don’t hit Don’t fire Don’t exercise evolution’s beast-like modernity By sunrise We arrive back at our own brownstone cave Where sitting next to the vase of her kin Waiting a turn to take their first time walk Their last time remembrance Where something besides captivity in a vase Will fill their final hours I take a very droopy daisy from my buttonhole Lay her to rest beneath another page of my diary Lift the pen to record our day Smile at the other daisies Knowing their bucket list will be filled as well And begin my daily entry She loves me She loves me not She loves me…