BLOOD BROTHERS AND SISTERS

The desert pea bursts red,

redder than the soil, red as blood,

bleeds its life into days during which

it seduces insects to take its seed

in exchange for that of others,

binds that gift close to build the pod,

the capsule inscribed

with its last grand message to the world,

green peas that soon will also fade

dropping their seeds to the whim of wind

and soil, a few finding a home

but many lost.

Last weekend I visited the desert pea:

it bequeathed to me this little piece of DNA

that contains in its helices

all our complexity -

our place, our blossom,

our seed, our death -

set against the millennia

that roll and roll

across the vast desert.