Bean Seedling Poem by Sonny Rainshine

What impetus, what push!
The minute embryo,
so fragile and yellow
flings open the hemispheres
of the bean
as if they were brown shutters
flung open on a sultry day.

Poking, propelling, drilling up
through the musty earth,
eluding earthworms
and established roots
of dandelions and vetch,
the stem drives up,
as saturated with energy
as a live power cord,
as brimming with fuel
as a pipeline.

Toward something
it cannot see, the sun,
it strives. Once the process
has ignited, there’s no turning back
toward the consoling dark earth,
mother earth, yet scraggly roots
drill a network down
the opposite way,
never to feel the warmth
of the sun or to bask
in the glory of the flamboyant
flower and fruit,
but vital still
toward the birth and maturation
of a bean.