Says Rhubarb to the Stinging Nettle <br />will we have time to judge and settle <br />our differences on this patch? <br />I say a Rhubarb is a match <br />to any plant that God created <br />and, no, we could not be related <br />consider widely different traits <br />a Stinging Nettle has no mates! <br /> <br />Your barbed and threatening exterior <br />makes you an utterly inferior <br />preposterously ugly weed. <br />And may I add, you are, indeed, <br />not worth the raindrops or the dew <br />or sunshine from a sky so blue. <br /> <br />God heard the words that Rhubarb spoke <br />he sent to Earth a puff of smoke <br />which dried the streams and all the land <br />and turned good soil into dead sand. <br /> <br />Now every garden expert knows <br />that rhubarbs need a daily dose <br />of water to exist at all <br />from Winter all the way to Fall. <br /> <br />The drought took hold in record time <br />the soil reduced to sand and lime <br />was not enough to now sustain <br />the stately but forever vain <br />old plant that's plain oxalic acid. <br /> <br />At first it swayed, still looking placid, <br />but soon its arms fell to the ground <br />without the slightest protest sound. <br />As Stinging Nettle watched in awe <br />unfolding of God's righteous, raw <br />and cruel punishment bestowed <br />the spindly fellow stood, head bowed <br />and worried as he needed drink <br />his body had begun to shrink. <br /> <br />For thirty days and thirty nights <br />God lit the stars and let their lights <br />illuminate the Earth below. <br /> <br />Day thirtyfirst brought heavy snow. <br />Long dead was Rhubarb without water <br />though next to him, a tiny daughter <br />had reared her head from bone dry land <br />it's something we can't understand. <br /> <br />But Stinging Nettle now was curious <br />to have the offspring of that furious <br />cantankerous and nasty plant <br />nearby, so he began to chant. <br /> <br />His voice, all cracked from dehydration <br />and lacking strength and modulation <br />was nothing even God could like. <br />Yet Rhubarb junior, tiny tyke <br />said this is beautiful my friend. <br />And this, for now, must be the end.<br /><br />Herbert Nehrlich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-kindness-of-rhubarb-junior/
