“Weeds, weeds, I love you.”
—Theodore Roethke
I am digging up morning glories
(once again wondering who named them that).
Invasive, they have spread themselves
from one spot to another,
tangling themselves around seedlings.
I push my trowel as deep as it wants to go
while the sucking soil attempts to exert control,
but it’s seldom I get all the roots.
Warm and itchy, I shake loose what earth I can
and take pains to put back the worms.
Dandelions are easier, their broad leaves belying
their easily accessible roots.
These, along with dockweed, thistles, nettles,
and countless weeds I cannot identify
go into my buckets.
In a better life, Roethke,
I might come to love your weeds.
But in the life that I have
they are my weeds,
and I’m hauling them off to the dump.
This article was published originally in 2023, in GreenPrints Issue #133.
