THE GRASS OF OUR TIME

Look at how fragile you are,
With a twist I can break you yet you control my life,
Look at how cheap you are, yet you destroy my organs that cost a lot to remake fine,
See how lit you have become; so dimmed however at every drag I see beyond the sky into the quarks,
Such a worrisome object—innocent in craft, dangerous at the effect on life,
To treat you lightly is to tenderly erupt my idea of dangerous,
No matter how stranded I am; I yearn to earn enough for your daily consumption,
Oh stick of Nicotiana,
Our encounters have become perpetual,
Many use pipe, some use pots but legends use lips,
As I drag life out of you, you bring life into me,
The life you bring whirls across the fantasies of the potent mind which deteriorates my medical life of mine,
Many die of your effect,
Your casing says people who consume you are liable to die young,
But are we not already living to die?
Africans say one thing must kill a man,
Hence I say to you my beloved stick,
If I perish let it be from the highness of your touch,
You make me hot inside in the brisk winter,
You make me ooze like a block of burning wood in the humid summer,
You make me refreshingly stench in the haze of the autumn,
And the composites of the spring I smell soaked in dying grasses,
There are many sticks in this world but the knowledge of your stick is what has sustained every friend of yours,
When they were running mad from the events of life,
I say this in dire need of your presence oh mighty bush doctor,
Thou art worthy of the risk!