All fall they were ripping out the wild roses, leaving them to die in mass composts. Then they tore out the mock orange whose boughs had housed all varieties of birds and whose scent had democratically graced the air.
Cutting down the sheltering trees, they sought to remove all refuge for a woman or a man or a child or a coyote or a bird or a rat. (I could go on.) Grudging them all a place to sleep unexposed.
Busing in a better class of fauna and flora, they attempted to cleanse out the remaining inhabitants. Peonies were planted, behind a line of box woods. California Lilacs were brought in to stand-in for the mock orange. As if the birds wouldn’t have noticed, which they did. At first they were confused, then the blackbirds were in denial, and the robins made their feelings known, and the crows? Don’t ask me about the crows.
Then this spring, the wild roses insinuated themselves amongst the orderly peonies. The blackberries crept up from beneath the rocks where they had bidden their time, stealthily they moved across the front lines, surprising a box shrub -- it is now missing. The California lilac unable to move, was hypnotized by the sinewy morning glory undulating at its trunk, waiting to strike. The Cosmos have this look like they would rather be somewhere else. And the tulips have long since fled the scene.
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