To feel exposed to the madness of the vast eternal sky

Before I put a poem for the today let me tell you the bizarre story of how I found this one. So I was taking a standardized test, it was either whatever the state mandated tests are now called (previously Star9 and Cat6 among various other names) or the CAHSEE (mandatory test for high school sophomores in the state of California). I hated those tests, not for their difficulty because to be honest calling them "difficult" would be an extreme overstatement, but for the time they took up and the coldness of the rooms (the rooms were always colder, I'm not sure why). ANYWAY, while I was taking one of these tests sophomore year I came upon this poem (which was followed by analysis questions) and I liked it, a lot. And so I wrote down a few lines of it on my eraser so I could find it once I escaped the testing environment. Anyway, so here it is.

Identity
by Julio Noboa Polanco

Let them be flowers

always watered, fed, grounded, admired,

but harnessed to a pot of dirt.

I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed,

clinging on cliffs, like an eagle

wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks

To have broken through the surface of stone

to live, to feel exposed to the madness

of the vast eternal sky.

To be swayed by the breezes of an ancient sea

carrying my soul, my seed beyond the mountains of time

or into the abyss of the bizarre.

I'd rather be unseen, and if,

then shunned by everyone

than to be a pleasant-smelling flower

growing in clusters in the fertile valley

where they're praised, handled, and plucked

by greedy human hands.
I'd rather smell of musty green stench
than of sweet, fragrant lilac.

If I could stand alone, strong and free

I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed.