Appalachian American Ennui: June 2024

Named after Alabama plantation owner, Colonial William Johnson, these invasive blades were originally propagated sua sponte, as is expected, accross northern Africa and much of Asia. Literal and figuarative propagation begins and endures on account of Redneks. I have probably exhumed tens of thousands of these stalks in the rain-made-maleable earth. I'll probably double that in the years I have left. These bastards fuck with my shit. Controlled burns seem to help, but hand-exhumation only invites exponential generations to intersperse with my milkweed, cup-plants, black-eyed susans, wild carrot, bee balm, coneflowers, fetch, blue-bells, dandelions, mullein, golden-rod, clover quilts and broad-covers, forsythias, thistle stalks, big blue stem, blackberries, dewberries, grapevines and mus-kee-dine vines, broad-dock and narrow-dock, eldeberry, spice-bushe, hops assemblies, iron-weed and button bushes. "all things counter, orignal, spare, strange; whatever is fickle, freckled, and all trades, their gear and tackle and trim." (from Pied Beauty by G.M. Hopkins). Oddly, even the Johnson grass is not immune to the letting go of which, of which I've learned. Stalks stand sentinel to the emergent suckers, which both compete with and exploit their hedgemony. It's gone to seed goddammit.