The mantis and the spider

For those who don’t believe
the mantis and the spider
can live in harmony

Plant and grow a dope tree.

Once the seed germinates
the cotyledons unfurl
the first true leaves appear

you’ll have to wait a week or
two for the mantis to arrive

but it will. It will be the tiniest
Thing, one of nature’s most precious, most vicious predators

But cute as fuck (until she bites your head off)

But this poem is not about that – this poem is
about the mantis and the spider.

Every dope bush gets one mantis. I think this is Jah’s decree
I have never grown a dope bush that does not come without
its own mantis.

Gratis.

As if Instilled there by magic and by beauty
All rolled into one.

Of course there can be more than one mantis, more than one spider
though I generally find the first mantis appears three to four weeks
into propagation

once the plant has developed sufficiently through its apical meristem
And then one morning you wake up, and after brewing your first cup
of brew, you’ll be standing there and you’ll go, oh look!

the tiniest most precious little thing.

Barring misadventure this mantis will stay with the dope bush, grow
with the dope bush until harvest
symbiotically getting goofed and catching bugs and getting fuck-off

High until it matures, has babies
and dies.

That’s nature for you. In your garden.
Let him who has eyes see.   

The spider will arrive once the dope bush is seriously flowering
And there are bugs galore.

This spider will be of the jumping variety
and also start off seriously

Cute AF.

A little black guy we usually call ‘Norton’
After Norton Antivirus and Norton will stand there, his little legs
balancing on the leaves in the breeze and with his little eyes all

Arranged, will follow you around as you
move always facing you head on

never letting you out of his sight
and I don’t know about you
but that comforts me somehow.

And I have never not once seen
The mantis and the spider fight.

I guess there are bugs enough in this world for everyone,
should we choose to love that way, in harmony
in the garden.