Culture Flowers Poem by Lonnie Hicks

We’re all lashed
to Cultural Helms
besodden
ingrained eyes
narrowed to squinty plane
seeing;
not seeing
only mine;
and not mine
blind.

Culture is the Gardener's Death
who’s kind to only one flower;
other's bloom in the garden darkened
by blindness over-powered.

Strain some may
against the mast
yet they most times
cultivate only their own gardens;
time and the past
cause other flowers
to bloom and wither
before our very countenance.

Tempted we may be
by soul's desire
to look beyond the garden walls:
But few cannot,
but lift the spade
and plow the same furrows,
which etch our brow
contain our lives
until our death
we having known
only one garden flower:
grown beautifully
in straight
and narrow furrows.

A few sometimes
smell other blooms
thereby open up
genius
which is
simply
being willing
to sip and know
Not Like We-Ness.