Arguing with the Nature Spirits [Revision]

Hey woman, hooray for you!

You’ve left us a nice bit of mini-jungle 

here within your small back yard. 

We do like to be left some suitably 

untouched, wild spaces – especially now 

when, all around us, foolish folk

allow the wilderness to diminish.

We fear it will all disappear too soon.

I understand that greed for wilderness.

Yet if I allow the weeds to continue

rising unchecked in rich proliferation, 

soon I’ll have the whole snake nation 

sunning here, nesting here, as the weather 

warms and draws them out from hibernation.

Oh no, we’ve seen you do it before: 

you’ll get that kid from over the road 

to come again, to prune and pare,

weed widely, crash through and slash 

all the tall stems and grasses, 

until at last – wanna bet? –

there’ll be nothing much left,

and some of us will be out on our arses.

It’ll be me out if I don’t please the landlord 

with some attempt at suburban order: 

a border here, a mown lawn there, while I grow

sweet European flowers to be weeded, watered, 

pruned and generally molly-coddled. I need 

to keep this rented roof over my old head.

We’re looking for good weedy plots with lots 

of room, lots of thick growth. Too much neatness 

makes us needy! So, OK, you rent; which means

appeasing your landlord’s conventional silliness. 

But must you till every small corner? Must you

cut and cultivate so fully, so tidily, so prettily, 

so politely? Why not leave us just one little bit?

What if we promise to chase away snakes?

[Earlier version.]