Desire in the Wild Grass

Do living things, any lives,

Actually want to survive,

Or have tautological cycles

Of billions of years, trillions

Of cell generations of

Survivors leaving behind

Even better survivors,

Left everything come to life

In these latter days programmed

To battle for survival?

The cockroach and the wild grass,

Elephants and aspen clones

All deploy survival tools,

Offensive and defensive,

Digestive juices, toxins,

Whatever works for their kind,

And seem to struggle against

Dying, as if determined

To go on living, hungry

To go on living. Do they

Want, do they all want, to live?