The Creeps
A Tale from a Year in the Life of a Vine
Copyright 2021, Zachary Zundel
Grandmother vine, twisted but refined, reminds.
Beware.
For the creeper comes for cuttings and consumes them in the night.
There is nothing you can do to outrun the browning blight.
Not long ago.
No.
Within one grow.
Every vineyard stood aghast.
As a creeping, crawling, chitin chewed a hole through every class.
At first it was a mystery.
What has happened to our leaves?
As brittle gushing galls all hinted at disease.
The creeper came.
And the world of wine would never be the same.
Looking out cross the fields, a terror took to reign.
Unstoppable, improbable, impossible.
Every vine was doomed for pull.
It was the end.
For to see a friend, may spread the unseen fiend.
Wherever tenders traveled the brown blight surged freely.
Unstoppable power.
The creeper crawled through every bower.
For some, sandy soils in secluded searing shores secured safety.
Death to the rest.
Distress.
The panic took purchase as the creeper played.
Charms and tokens could not contain.
Frogs interred in droves.
Yet still the creeper strolled.
Pondering the perilous present. A scientist sees.
And Phylloxera is revealed at last as the source of this unease.
Although a graft my now protected you,
little Vinifera,
know.
We are not that far away
from another creeper taking hold.
