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Migrants [1]

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Date: 2023-03-07  

Migrants

Before I caught onto calendars

As a kid, I still knew there were

Special times,

Some of them happened

In late spring

And in the summer months, too –

Days would come when

The sky was filled

With such beings

As the tiny orange and black kites

Called Monarch Butterflies;

Or by furry moths;

Or by dragonflies;

Or by other flying things.

The years turn like pages

And the clouds of living bugs

Have been cleared from the skies,

Why do we treat our migrant insects

As badly as we do the human ones?

Common milkweed • verbena • showy milkweed

Butterfly milkweed • swamp milkweed • dandelions

And all the other plants that feed

These traveling guests

Are too often tagged as weeds

Targeted to be poisoned for profit.

Fashion landscape bigotry:

"My god, see that dandelion in the lawn,

"Kill that neighbor, burn his house."

Where do the children of today

Find magic?

What is left for the birds and frogs

To eat?

God damn you Monsanto/Bayer

And all the other chemical corporations

Whose sprays of death destroy

More than they save,

Leaving us with barren lands

And cancer in our bodies, too.

Say "No" to corporations' dictates and greed

Theirs is not the answer -

Let's bring back the butterflies -

There are other solutions,

And better paths

That do not need

The tools of death

To grow our crops

And protect our lands –

That allow the migrants of the world

To thrive

And ourselves as well.

Carl Scott Harker ©2023

__________________________________________

My latest book of poetry is now available on Amazon, you can find more great poems in here: An Engineer of Words.

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