Defiantly, there grew a lily
surrounded by a sea
of morning glory
it sprouted from soils
fertilized with a falsity
of promises wept
Their violent waves
splash at
its stalk
their twisting vines
strangle up
its stem.
There no longer grew a lily,
instead replaced
by homogenized glory.
About the Author
Melia Kootnikoff is in her first year in the Associate of Arts program at Selkirk College, aspiring to be an art therapist. She lives in the Slocan Valley, the unceded territory of the Sinixt. She has always loved drawing, only exploring writing after moving out to the Kootenays as a young adult and finding her best friend in her journal. Her family’s history as Doukhobors influences this poem.
