Unfurl Your Foliage

During prolonged drought

Some ferns can furl foliage

For a hundred years

Patiently awaiting, clouds’ rehydrating tears

Other ferns spawn sperm

That swim in puddles seeking

Fern eggs that await them there

Impatient for their seeding

Still other ferns can sense fern-sperm

And—by way of interceding—

Release fern-sperm-slowing chemicals

That inhibit puddle breeding

All around us, nature riots

In epic life and death

While we apex humans fill our time

With the crap we think, we must accept

Don’t get me wrong, some forms need filing

But can’t we also see?

In the cracks of time between the files

We aren’t living epically

What then should we do

To mix our lives with meaning?

The truth is, I don’t really know

But in wholeness—I think—

I hear the answer keening

When we realize we matter

And claim the worth of you and me

When we unfurl our foliage

In our unfurling, we are free

.pete rezac