By Dorothea Barth ©2013
Bold and barbed the prickly pear
To bird and beast immune
Undisturbed to drink the sun
Proclaim its prickly tune
Spines to wound and so to shield
The tender flesh below
What humans labor to create
Here nature does bestow
Shapely stands the prickly pear
And Gaia's sculpted art
Reveals to all a precious truth:
This cactus has a heart
Copyright 2009 Dorothea Barth. All rights reserved.