The Invasive Weed: A Dialectic Poem

By Gaurav Chandra Tuli -

 A poem that explores contrasts through the dialectic, a philosophical technique of logical reasoning that aims to reach one cohesive understanding by reconciling opposite views.

A sojourn to embrace the life of life, the fire within that keeps us alive.

Ponder over the tension between nature and culture, the wild and the tamed, agricultural cultivation and the forest, the edible crop and the inedible weed, Apollonian and Dionysian strategy, the Vedic Sun and the Vedic Moon. 

 

The farmer observes the undergrowth green,

She studies the quickly invading weed.

The semblance of earthly green fur is seen,

To let it flower, the riskiest deed.


She must erase it all and leave no trace,

Lest she wants her crop to die a slow death.

The weed exiled to the wild Forest's race,

Away from pruning, the land of tamed breath.


Raw life has no place in refined culture,

The Vedic Moon, Dionysus' realm are 'beastly'.

Curb the wolf's howl, the flight of the vulture,

Rule over Eros' life to act priestly.


Yet remember that the farmer may curb,

But the impulse of life is water-like.

It is ambrosia, the elemental herb,

Can never run dry creativity's spike.

Gaurav Chandra Tuli

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