We Call them Weeds

On that which wants another look.

Photo by Natalia Luchanko on Unsplash

Driving home on an evening last summer I was put at considerable risk of crashing my car when I was distracted by a litany of little incandescents, tongues of fire hovering over yard after yard. I thought of my own, from which I’d so recently been plucking those wicks as nuisances. There would be no revelations under my watch.

On that drive I was reminded to look again for those things wanting fresh grace, and a reconsideration. Even as I write this, people come to mind whom I’ve written off, relegated as weeds in my life. It’s a harsh word, but an honest one. Perhaps I’m in need of fresh grace myself if I can think such thoughts.

Dandelions are notorious for domination, and are expert at reseeding. But far from the obnoxious-for-the-sake-of-it things I’d first considered them, the little yellow things can actually be a sign of poor soil quality. The blooms can root in places more tender things can’t, and their long taproot can aerate poor soil to allow more nutrients to flow in. If I look around and see nothing but weeds, perhaps it’s my soul—not my yard—that needs work.

I hope you and I, reader, can learn to reconsider our weeds together, and that before plucking them entirely we might learn to see something holy staring back at us.

We Call them Weeds

Originally published in the Amethyst Review.

This is whence yellow is named,
this the hue by which all gold measured:
fair maiden, standing tip-toe tall in the green—
earthed flicker of heaven’s flame.

And then, of a sudden burst soft and cloud-
pale in wisdom’s white: thus impaled 
by the last happy beams of the red west,
lit pure like a candle in its flashing death.

Love-seeds scatter on the wind; find
their given hold; take at a prayer’s pace.
And as the prairie ever tells, all
shall bloom which love has sown.

It was in ignorance I called them weeds;
though were my life but half as bright as these,
just think how sweet would be the legacy.