Dryad, End of Season

Self-indentured, trapped in a scheme
of my own devising, I am both
means of production and product.

Shackled to this earth’s factory floor,
I should be resigned, yet I twist
and writhe as others have, convinced

that I can break free of myself,
that a summer spent getting sun
and water, in mining the soil’s riches,

might yield something other than
another hurried end of season
clear out that yields the sweetgum’s

brown Novas, the maple’s feathered comets,
the oak’s furious meteor
shower, the walnut’s green suns; endless

over-stock that Time discounts ever
more deeply till year-end’s final
panic selling empties the shelf.