The Withered One Does Not Rule the World

I loved a yucca once.

Loved the way it stood
all sharp green insistence
against the light.

I photographed it.

I wrote a poem.

Nearby, two ducks moved across the water
as if the afternoon had made them
for that exact purpose.

I photographed them too.

Then someone smashed the yucca.

Someone shot the ducks.

Why?

There is never a satisfying answer.

Once, a cat was hung by its collar
against the well
and left to strangle.

Why?

The neighbor’s dogs,
never kept securely where they belonged,
came into our yard
and killed my cat—

rabbit-soft fur,
sweet little mews.

Why?

An old horse,
standing in a field,
doing nothing to anyone,
was shot in the head.

She survived.

Later the bullet worked its way loose
and dropped from her nose
after the wound had healed.

Why?

I have asked that word
until it became almost useless.

Why.

Why.

Why.

Cruelty is not new.

Irresponsibility is not new.

The careless hand,
the hungry hand,
the hand that destroys
because something beautiful
exists beyond its ownership—

not new.

I have seen it
again and again.

So I gave it a shape.

The Withered One.

Not a person.

A shadow.

An uneven gait
dragging itself through the world.

Absolute in judgment.

Starving in its certainty.

It stalks what it cannot understand.

It sneers at what is tender.

It reaches for what glows.

It keeps one eye shut
so it will not have to see
what it is doing.

The Withered One wants the sunset.

Wants the sunrise.

Wants to lick the gold
right off the horizon
and stuff it into the torn pockets
of its holey robes.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

It wants the bird.

The flower.

The animal.

The story.

The body.

The field.

The light.

And when it cannot own a thing,
sometimes it would rather ruin it.

But this is the part
the Withered One never understands:

it does not rule the world.

The cycles do.

The animal returns to earth.

The tree exchanges itself
with fungus, rain, insects, soil.

The dead thing feeds the living thing.

The fallen trunk
becomes shelter.

The seed waits.

The root travels.

The marsh fills and empties.

The moon pulls the water
without asking permission.

The Withered One sees destruction
and calls it power.

But nature knows transformation.

Cut the wildflowers.

The butterflies will find another patch.

Smash the yucca.

Another green spear
will rise from somewhere
you forgot to watch.

Dig up the lady’s slipper.

She will appear again
off the trail,
under leaves,
in some secret fold of forest
where greedy hands do not know to look.

Shoot the bird.

The sky does not empty.

Cut down the tree.

The roots keep their dark counsel.

Remove the body.

The air remembers its shape.

Again.

Again.

Again.

This is not optimism.

It’s observation.

The world returns.

Not unchanged.

Never pristine.

But alive.

And because I have seen
what people can do,

I hold what I love
closer to my body now.

I guard what is tender.

I keep more things private.

I do not beat a path
to a rare flower.

I do not tell a stranger
where a nest is.

I have learned that love and care
sometimes require concealment.

But I have also learned
something better:

I am not the Withered One.

I am not of the world
that destroys simply because it can.

I do not need to possess the sunset
to stand inside its light.

I do not need to cage the bird
to hear it.

I do not need to dig up the flower
to know it bloomed.

I can leave a thing alive.

I can witness it.

I can love it
without taking it.

And perhaps that is the difference.

The Withered One is always hungry
because it believes possession
will make it whole.

So it walks.

Stalks.

Sees.

Talks.

Judges.

Grabs.

Ruins.

One eye clenched shut
against the truth:

light is never available
for ownership.

The sunset passes through everyone.

The sunrise returns
whether anyone deserves it or not.

The yucca rises.

The ducks return to water.

Somewhere, a lady’s slipper
pushes through the leaves
where nobody is looking.

And the butterflies—

the butterflies
keep coming back.

The mixed puppy often grows stronger
than the purebred one sold as perfection.

The wild thing,
without ownership,
remains free.

So stand beside the Withered One
with one eye closed
and tell yourself
you understand the sky.

Tell yourself
you own what passes through you.

Tell yourself
you know what light is.

I dare you.

I don’t want you to walk with me.

I’m with the wild ones.

The cycles and the light that can’t be owned.