Life on Earth: two poems by Nicholas Lezard
by Nicholas Lezard
March 2023
Watching Attenborough’s Green Planet, Nicholas Lezard finds himself possessed by the spirit of Dorothy Parker.
The desert in general
The desert plants in deep sand lie
And wait for twenty years for rain.
It comes, they sprout, and seed, and die,
And on and on it goes again.
The cactus in particular
Through centuries of heat and cold
The cactus grows so bloody old.
But it does what the fuck it likes
Because its hide is lined with spikes.
