Weeds Don’t Cry

Weeds don’t cry.

They stand stalwart 

in fields of corn,

in precise gardens of boxwood and lavender,

in chummy closeness with thyme and sage.

Then someone will shout:

“Pull up those damn weeds,”

and hands of all ages 

will strain against the  strength 

of those orphans of wildness and 

pull, pull, pull, 

or put foot to spade and

slice down to clear the root. 

In my salad days,

I pulled up sheaves of five foot tall

lamb's quarters to feed the breeder pigs. 

Lamb’s quarters, dandelion, amaranth, clover -

they grew between the crops and the rocks,

nourishing the pigs till the corn came in.

Someone once told me

that I was a weed - 

resilient, strong, able to flourish

in adverse conditions.

And I carried that thought 

throughout my life,

and felt proud ….

For when someone tells you that,

you never forget it. 

After years of garden work,

here’s how I feel about weeds:

I love them.

Kneeling in the middle

of  my tomato plants, 

I am contemplative and peaceful

as my reedy hands pull and pull and pull,

piling up the weeds of my past,

each a remembrance, 

an homage to enduring.

© Evie Safran, 2017

Men with picks and hoes clearing weeds in a field
Pullenvale, 1889
Photo held by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland
Photo from Wikimedia Commons