Tiller

The 2-4-D acted quickly enough
Coming in over the trees on a hot and humid day
Probably from the 80 acres a mile south,
Rising up from the plowed field
Turning the heat waves a sick purple
Vaporising a few feet above ground
Then rising quickly in the heat wind
Moving northward toward our vineyard,
Or it could have been the spraying
Of the overhead power line easement
Where the hired guns sprayed straight in the air
Thirty, forty feet to reach the highest vegetation
That threatened our electric grid,

It took a few days for the young vines to respond
To this seemingly unobtrusive chemical guest,
The leaves developed a fan-like appearance,
Their color turned from vibrant green
To a mottled yellow and green ugliness
That we just could not bear to look at
Knowing that they would never bear fruit,
Knowing that even if they did survive this onslaught
They would never fully develop
Like all the others that had developed normally,
We compared them to the producing older vines
Commenting on how the old ones were beautiful
With full clusters of wine grapes
Rich with the potential of vintage wines,
These infected ones, we said,
Could not be allowed to take up valuable space,
Space reserved for vigorous hybrids
Guaranteed to give us their bounty every year,

The tiller moved quickly up through the tunnel
Of the canopy of old vines
To the place where the young infected ones
Had been implanted Into the fertile earth,
Still living, they had no inkling of what was taking place
As the sharp blade scraped them
From the sunny warmth
Of their intended home,
Leaving a darkness that would be forgotten.