Top Five Resilient Plants

I grow sideways. Mirabilis.
When up seemed the only way, I went out:
I thickened like sediment and straddled the land.
I found my axis. I made a trunk like a hoof.
I squatted down like child birth. I ignored the climb
And sought to grow rings, each one as sure as strides.

2000 years passed but I stayed still:
Mapping, rooting, sleeping, staying. Kauri.
What seemed an age was as silly as an egg to me: I'm as
Permanent as stars. The moon shivered like old cinereels,
Blinking the months and seasons.

On the plains, my insides became hollow but not empty:
I know to drink, sleep and store. My insides are bottled lakes.
Baobab. Birds gather to dance on my branches and flirt.
I have water enough to last me through the anxious nights.

And then sometimes it seems I'm done with growth.
In the summer sun, I'm silent as the grave. Selaginella.
I blow from dune to dune like desert trash;
But it's a feint. I'm never done.
I'm hibernating, brittle as bone, until I bloom like lazarus.

And when I'm well and full and forest green,
I still curl up, foetal tips, clenched fronds: a foliage fort.
Mimosa. But then the dangers pass and I'm there again:
Like jazz hands. Every time I close, I sleep a while,
Then open up like lungs.