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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Weeding the Garden

I weed my garden every day,
pulling out the crabgrass,
thistle, wild violet.
They are comrades to be sure.
Am I not a weed,
growing up by chance
in wind and rain?
So I understand
how right they are to bloom,
to spread their flowers,
open themselves to the sky,
and a right to be left alone.
Someday I will stop
pulling them up.
Like a lover of life
who avoids stepping on ants.

I will leave them be,
and thank Providence
that I wasn’t weeded
before I could know love,
write a poem,
build a place to sit
and look over things
with a glass of beer,
friends,
and ignore the midnight
that will pull its cover over me.
Someday,
a voice might whisper,
I’ve let you be.
I do not weed my children anymore.
Sleep,
and leave your seed behind,
thistle, crabgrass, and wild violet
to delight me.

Published inIndex of all Poems