Believing the Best

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Believing the Best

Whoever visited my yard through the fence’s breach
and climbed up in my fruit tree to commandeer a peach—
did you need to hack the ivy twined around the post
and also steal the single rose that I loved the most?
Did you need to do the worst, then leave without a clue
of who had done the damage you felt inclined to do?

I only hope this selfishness will not become a trend,
and so this single message is the one I wish to send.
I hope the peach you ate was sweet and the rose you took
was for a special one you loved, who pressed it in a book.
I hope you took the ivy to twine into a crown
to place around a spill of hair that she had taken down

to fall around her shoulders—and that is why you chose
to not only sate your hunger, but to also take the rose.
And then, these thefts completed, you pilfered one thing more
when you spied the ivy vine and you thoughtfully tore
just a little bit of it for your true love’s hair.
This one act excused all and made your pilferage most rare.

 

Prompts for the day are breach, hack, trend, twine and clue.

13 thoughts on “Believing the Best”

    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      Something eats every pistachio from the tree and I’ve never seen one pilfering. The opossum eats the cat food but fades away seconds before I approach the door, no matter how quiet I am. Leaf cutter ants strip every flower, every leaf if I don’t commit ant genocide. Cows would level the plants in my lower lot if I hadn’t constructed a chain link fence. Snails devour the hibiscus leaves, hummingbird moth larvae strip the Virginia Creeper vines. My dogs will eat all the dirt in a planter if I let them and don’t cover it with big stones. Termites gnaw at the porch overhang supports, tiny black ants form caravans and dine on any scrap missed in kitchen cleanup. Diego waits for any chance to invade my house and devour anything remotely reachable–once five porkchops cooking in a skillet, once a quarter pound of butter, once an entire roasted chicken and another time three dozen cookies. Yes, we have equivalents.

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