Weeds

My daughter pities the weeds.

She listens, absorbs, echoes:

“There aren’t really weeds, you know.

That’s just a word we say.

They’re only flowers people do not like.”

Child glowing with compassion.

I’ve shown her unawares

How to love the wildest flowers,

Reckless, unbounded,

The unmanageable ones,

That stretch on lanky stems all unabashed,

And open up so wide their petals

Bend back toward the earth,

Intemperate and hungry for the sun.

I praise her as she coddles dandelions;

Should I warn her of them too?

Must I as mother see she learns

That she may love the weeds—

God knows, I love the weeds—

But she’ll grow no gentle gardens if she does?

Should I train her in the rubric

By which the fiends of symmetry

Determine worthiness?

Which merit poisons,

Which provisions?

Is a flower ornamental? Needy?

Do its colors complement?

Can it be tamed, contained, or sold?

Insidious lesson – why teach her

What she cannot help but learn?

I’ll not.

May she always err in compassion’s favor.

Let her find with ease the real and vivid beauty in despised things.

Let her love the weeds.