Weed Puller’s Soliloquy

Time for weeding. For bulbs to stretch their limbs.
For seeds to unzip skins & crack smiles.
After days spent plucking weeds i’m beginning
to realize their intelligence & cunning.
i see how Roethke came to respect them
: so barefaced, in plain sight of the po-faced Camellias
— one weed dresses in a baby-grow of grass,
mint excretes scent agreeable to all noses,
many coil pokey horns
into the cavities of stone paths
which fingers can’t pry open
nor tools pick, though shaped like pythons.
i’d rather be a weed
than a flower, tree or even a cloud.