CACTOBLASTIS CACTORUM

    - an Argentinian moth imported to Australia in 1925 to control prickly 
      pear cactus (Opuntia) infestation, now spreading north from Florida

Cactoblastis cactorum -
Opuntia tremble at your name.
Your mere scent on a south wind shrivels spines like spent tendrils.
Your tongueÕs caress curdles cladophylls from the inside out.
The flutter of your wings wilts prickly pear pads limp as pickled nopales.

Cactoblastis cactorum - 
Terror precedes you from wherever survivors whimper and whine.
Where they yellow in the once friendly sun, their black insides ooze and melt.
Your rumor drains the purple from ripe tunas and sets up a howl 
from the sandstone mesas wilder than the blood yelp of famished coyotes

Cactoblastis cactorum - 
Only the few fit know you end the glory of Crassulacean Acid Metabolism,
the Pathway that defied drought and drying wind,
voracious cattle, the blades of plows,
the blades of time slicing through the blasted broken canyons

Cactoblastis cactorum - 
The burned earth once belonged to King Cactus, once was subdued by Lord Opuntia.
Now, naked again, awaiting the grass,
beneath the myriad moth breaths beating from your wings,
comes the next Conquistador,

Cactoblastis cactorum.


© 2001 by Richard W. Todd

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