So much is Woolf’s grimy pence and pounds,
ledger entries and balance sheets.
The bankers convince us to run our lives
like (small, under-capitalized) start-ups,
money in, money out, money saved, money spent,
parsimonious and future-tense, as if
there is no real today, just the thin
horizon of tomorrow’s return on investment.
Never mind the sweet scent of honeysuckle carried
through the window from the wild abundance in the yard,
cut it down today, you’re told, or it will devalue
the entire quarter-acre you call home,
as if value is the same as pence and pounds,
what someone would (refuse to) pay
for what you happen to love, the waft of honeysweet,
the surprise of perfume offered freely
on the afternoon breeze.
What sort of value is that, I ask you,
that would privilege the absence of flowers?