Wild Lantana

The landscape fades away
grass turns from green to solemn yellow
trees drop their leaves
to message the passing
of yet another season
the video of our neighborhood
now shows a scraggly look
unkempt and disheveled
as if nature gave up the ghost
and slowly walked away

yet there in the alley
grows a persistent Lantana
a bush so wild and weedy
it looks sickly
scrawny as a stick
it is almost leafless
yet in its bareness
still blossoms forth with flowers
bright displays of brilliant orange and gold
cheerful in parenthesis
weaving thru the chain-link fence

we are amazed at its resistance
how it stubbornly refuses to go along
the wild Lantana shows its mettle
defies the norm of giving up
and even in its sad condition
issues forth in courage
gives us its unspoken message
of enduring happiness.