Weeding (my contribution to National Poetry Month)
You're stuck at home for Covid Quarantine anyway, so why not challenge yourself (and your kids and other family members) to write a poem in honor of National Poetry Month? That's April, as in right now.
I've been doing a lot of gardening with the kids these last couple of weeks; and, whenever I garden with kids (I used to run a public in-school gardening club), somebody always defends the weeds.
"Why are we removing the ones with flowers?" they ask; or, holding a dug-up weed by the roots, "Can I take this one home?"
It always makes me contemplate the word and concept of genocide, which is what prompted me to write the poem below. While trying to determine if genocide technically only refers to humans, I discovered the reference in the poem's only footnote, which caused me to ponder things even more deeply.
Weeding[i]
by Melissa B. Rooney
I committed genocide today.
I pulled up all the weeds and threw’m away.
Poison ivy and pine shoots –
Pulled ‘em all up by the roots.
They’re all gone. ‘Least I hope so anyway.
With little satisfaction did I purge
The pimpernel, purslane and spotted spurge.
I didn’t want to do it,
But the seeds inside the suet
Missed the birds and hit the ground, so weeds emerged.
I am certain, if I hadn’t got there first,
That my lilies would have drowned in shepherd’s purse;
And the knee-high purple clover
Surely would have taken over
All my lovely pink impatiens in their thirst.
Though dandelion flowers can be pretty,
They spread until my lawn’s a dandelion city.
That upsets my HOA,
So I dug them up today,
Though, no doubt, they’ll be back with little pity.
The dogfennel’d nearly eaten my azaleas,
And the burnweed had my daisies by the balls.
I got there just in time
To save my new clematis vine
from English ivy overtaking the front walls.
As I stuff their stringy forms into my bin,
I wonder at my farcical ambition.
My victims did not hide
When I committed genocide,
But Nature wins wars by ruthless attrition.
[i] In response to Botanical decolonization: rethinking native plants (T. Mastnak et al., Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2014, volume 32, pages 363 – 380): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1068/d13006p?id=d13006p.
