Impossible Gardens

Somewhere between the Canna lilies and the Delphinium Blue King,
he started in on mask wearers.
A local, I could tell,
the turns of phrase and the mandatory team jersey.

He had already launched into his rant when I pulled my truck
into the lot of the garden centre,
sermonizing before a small sullen crowd
about the Nano particles that will be released from inside our vaccines
once the government unleashes the 5G network.

His voice booming behind me, I surveyed the dahlias and wondered
what dinner plate really meant. Smacked of overreach.
The marigolds were next, resplendent in their yellowness,
but always smelled to me like my Grade 12 chemistry lab.

His fan base had grown by the time I reached the blue Flax,
a perennial I had always avoided. Too frail to last.
I heard a woman in the crowd ask what he had against science.
Your science or mine, he snarled,
the irony seemingly lost on the crowd.

His vitriol flowed seamlessly, the rhetoric ramped sky high.
He had moved on to personal freedom, chiding us and our mindless lockstep.
Do you know Bill Gates can track your every move?
I wondered how many would jump aboard.

Hey, Red. Your mask is useless,
he yelled out behind me.
But this was not a hill I would die on. Not today.

Driving home to get my hands dirty,
I turn up Highway on Sirius,
leaving him in my rearview,
Steve Earle now my perfect companion,
my annuals waving a riot of colour in the flatbed behind me,
even if only for a while.