What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
-Gerard Manley Hopkins, Inversnaid (1881)
“Nobody will miss that Hawthorne,”
said the one who ordered it cut down.
Except the Stellers Jay pair hopping confusedly in the rockery below
the squirrel family that chased in spirals up and down, across and through branches, hanging upside down to defy the physics of a squirrel-proof feeder, munch contendedly on the loot
the hummingbirds hovering for sugary sweet nectar in the blue glass feeder
that was a 10-year-old’s Mother’s Day gift
for the one who sat with coffee on cool mornings, chilled wine on warm afternoons, the occasional finger of scotch under night skies bright with cloud-diffused moonlight
and sits one last time in your midst.
Magnificent Crataegus monogyna
towering over 30 feet in the Speakers’ Corner of the yard
a thicket of dense and thorny soliloquies
throwing tantrums of dark berries staining the patio a bloody purple
do you know this is your last day?
That a crew comes tomorrow with chain saws and chippers
to dismember you limb from limb,
and, as if it is not enough to fell you,
your stump will be baptized in poison
to exorcise your devil spirit
stitched by tiny filaments to the rings of Hell
rising again and again after previous slayings.
And I, who do not understand the ways of the wise,
who knew nothing of your sordid weed-nature
thought you were a tree
heathen who does not place bills on an offering plate
who prays to the corporeal gods of the backyard:
the stately stellers jay and the crows
the playful squirrels, the scavenger rats,
the hopping wrens and the flitting hummingbirds,
your dark staining berries
and the sleepy young child sent outside to sweep them.
On your last day, I surrender to the wisdom of the weeds
ignorant of unwantedness
your bold and tireless bloom
your resistance to the desires of those with facts and plans
for how and where you should be
who wish you would have made their lives easier by dying
or skulking away
or at least having the good grace to stay small
and keep your bloody berries to yourself.
I will sing your praises to the gathering of weeds –
poets we call ourselves –
lines and stanzas habitually trimmed
messages mistaken and ignored
souls poisoned by our leaders’ relentless pruning
of “invasive non-natives.”
We weeds know the colorful bounty
of the untamed riot
weed and flower
tree and bush
refugee and homesteader
immigrants and first people
all blown this way and that
until in the blink of an eye
we come to rest
rummage down roots
that criss-cross and comingle underground
open our arms
and gather in those brave enough
to play amidst our thorns.
Contemplative