Suppose the world ran out of grass...
I've heard it said that once it did:
the end result was the giraffe.
How could the world run out of grass?
A quarter of the world's land mass
is covered with the stuff.
Which grass? All grasses?
Every grass or some?
Cocksfoot and Yorkshire fog?
Perennial rye and rough-stalked meadow?
Bamboos and cereals? Wild marsh
land plants and water chestnuts?
Most grasses thrive on being grazed.
Sheathed at base and grazed above.
We might run out of one or two...
but all of them?
How could that be? No sedge, no grain,
no beer or whiskey, paper, pasture, thatch?
The very starting point of human life, quite gone?
Creator of our top soil to be seen no more?
Gone, the grass that cuts the mustard
like no other plant. Gone,
the grasslands either side of desert bands
that gird the earth. Gone
that fourth of all our lands:
the prairies, pampas, steppes, savannas...
I've heard it said - but is it possible?
Shift of all the desert sands
from desert lands
the wind and heat
Tohu wa-bohu
shrink of plain
the dead is buried
where it droops. In Africa
the sands are taking over.
As for grass, its days are like man,
it flourishes, a flower -
but a perennial.
Less easy than I thought it would be, Poets United's Thursday prompt was the one word "Grass".
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11 comments:
This could actually be possible one day. Not in my lifetime but some day.
I hope this never comes to pass.
Oh I do like the idea that the giraffe was created because the world ran out of grass Dave!
I like this steady paced ramble and can only hope that no such thing would ever happen. So much good definitive information you have included. A wonderful lesson and thought provoking encounter. Thank you,
Elizabeth
Here's to grass!
A lyrical and bouncy turn on the theme.
It was tought, but I like your take onit DK.
We can't run out of grass!!! Where will the cheaper half play golf (giving me 3-4 hours of solitary bliss!)???
*shudder*
Aloha from Waikiki;
Comfort Spiral
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Its already happened way back in the Ice Age when our planet was nothing but a giant snowball spinning in the Milky Way :-).
I've been fighting couch in the garden beds for twenty-five years. I'd quite happily give up couch. The roots go down to China.
Have you heard of John Christopher's novel The Death of Grass? I saw the film adaptation not too long ago and I have the book but Christ knows when I'll ever get round to reading it.
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