Daisy’s Buttonhole
by Odin Roark

My city, bud, and I,
how we love a long walk,
daisy beneath my chin,
tucked securely in a buttonhole,
me with discovery in my eye,
maneuvering ever changing trail signs.

We walk these precipitous stone and glass canyons,
this forest of life without trees.
That’s what a city dweller does.
And if nature be your thing,
you take it with you.

My feet tread upon sidewalk and road,
concrete and asphalt,
Doggy-Doo and candy wrappers.

Safely harnessed at my heart,
a breeze wriggles Daisy for joy,
even knowing it’s only for a day,
the last of her bucket list,
a today adventure.

Together we drink in
vast canyons of safe caves and nesting pitches
forged atop dry beds
where once flowers and soil aired freely,
fowl and beast danced in synchronous survival
unaware evolution’s drumbeat was creating
esplanades of another kind.

Here where once crept moccasin-feet,
ever cautious of precious surroundings,
now but a buried imprint beneath
urban scree and mountainous bastions.

Afternoon brings overhead sunshine
peeking into the ravines
where man’s ant-like motion smothers the surface,
scurrying left and right
many moving but in place.

Still the light reaches us,
warming our journey
even as penthouse onlookers,
perhaps wonder as well;
“where did all the trees go?”

By nightfall,
Daisy begins to droop her head,
a long day taking in so much
has left little room for the remembrance of the fields
from whence she came.

The darkness of a city’s life,
where red and blue lights flash incessantly,
alternating with sirens
and blasts of police car Urp Urps,
giving habitual warning
Don’t attack.

Don’t hit.

Don’t resist.

Don’t fire.

Don’t exercise evolution’s beast-like modernity.

By sunrise
we arrive back at our own brownstone cave,
where facing the vase of her kin,
nods it’s their turn to take a first and last walk,
their time remembrance where something besides captivity in a vase
will fill their final hours.

I take a very droopy daisy from my buttonhole,
lay her to rest beside another page of my diary,
lift the pen to record our day,
smile at the other daisies in-waiting,
knowing their bucket list will be filled as well,
and begin my daily entry.

Daisies,
They love me.
They love me not.