About the Weeds - May 28 2023

 

About the Weeds

May 28 2023

It was about weeds.

Not the toil

ubiquity

impossible roots,

but what is

and isn’t.

Dandelion wine, edible greens

I'll say.

Unsightly

prickly

malignant

she'll counter,

sucking the life

out of her prized flowers.

So why do I, ever the contrarian

find them so intriguing?

How they endure drought

need little.

And how, just like us

they are the ultimate opportunists,

colonizing

any open space,

invading

occupied ones.

So what's not to like

about such hardy survivors?

Everything, she barks,

as if it was self-evident

question closed.

As if she'd never heard

that beauty

is in the eye of the beholder.

The good plants and the bad,

the cultivated

and undesired.

Also just like us.

And which am I?

The orchid,

a hot house flower

too sensitive to thrive?

Or the dandelion,

resilient

worldly

tough?

Which I only wish I was.

Here

looking longingly out.

from behind the steamed-up glass.