Tropic

table of contents

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Plants grow down toward gravity,

and experts call that geotropic.

Plants grow toward water

and they call that hydrotropic.

In a pre-witch life,

I dabbled in botany

and read some books

and grew a little garden

and came up with a theory

that animals work a lot the same way.

We don’t have roots, but we walk toward water.

We don’t have shoots, but we seek out light.

But unlike plants, 

I think we also have

contropic instincts;

we seek out

control.

(Contropic…I never did come up with a clean name like

geotropic,

what about powertropic? Kratotropic, where “krato-” means strength?)

We want order, over chaos.

Routine, over randomness.

Purpose, over accident.

We want the biggest guns

so no one can threaten us

we seek

safety in numbers

strength in arguments

security in money

but unlike gravity,

power doesn’t keep pulling as a constant

(it gets stronger

the closer you get)

and unlike water,

order

doesn’t fall from the heavens

(it’s imposed and hoarded)

so in this osprey dream

where the plants stayed green

and the sun burned

and the cities screamed

I think order

let chaos

have a turn

at ruling

the streets

and taking

the guns

and running

the mobs

and

spilling cash

into

pretty coffins

that didn’t last

a week

and the people

still cried

for control,

I bet,

like pockets full of power would preserve them.