We Fought the Battle Each with Our Own Weapons
The enormous bush
defied me to object
to anything it wanted to do
proceeded to grow and grow
until I decided to object
Put an end to its biography
with this summation:
topped out at ten feet tall
and twenty wide
harboring an ecosystem within it
of poison ivy and trapped plastic bags.
I recognized
a truly formidable opponent but
I had a saw and loppers
and it did not. On the hottest day of the year
I set to work. Switchy branches
to wrist-thick trunks: all fell
to my patient relentless approach
though I left the denouement to my husband
and his chain saw.
The last words in the story
a cleared dirt circle and the bush brought down
a pile of sticks dressed in wilting leaves
a circle of stumps that I will dig out later
once I recover from my opponent’s
ultimately futile but still of serious damage
counterattack.
I count it out on fingers
still curved to the grip of the saw:
a wicked case of poison ivy
a lattice of scratches on my arms and legs
insect bites representing a variety of species
one breathed-in leaf.
7/23/19
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
I like this. Quite a battle!
I wrote several poems about this encounter, which this poem lays out pretty much as it happened. Even now 2 years later I mow the grass in the area I cleared and I think of the past…and say ha ha, I got you, didn’t I?
😀
Claudia, oh how I can relate to this. I admire your engagement with your worthy opponent. Favorite part:
“I recognized
a truly formidable opponent but
I had a saw and loppers
and it did not.”
Thank you. We had a giant set of forsythia bushes I took out 2 summers ago and this poem is true to life. Including the nightmare case of poison ivy. Still, I got over the poison ivy. The bushes – they are still gone…!
You are welcome, and glad they’re still gone!!!
This definitely reads like a war poem.
Yes. I felt it. Adversaries clash.
They just released goats in Riverside Park to eat the poison ivy in one part of it. They have a month to clear it out. (K)
Those goats are efficient. I think you will see a change very soon. It amazes me that anything can EAT poison ivy.
Me too.