The Beautiful Bindweed

Things That Live Forever

Planting, watering
feeding, weeding
trimming, mulching.

Still, wherever I gaze
the wilderness has escaped
and overrun my tame, well-mannered garden.

I’ve put in stone walkways –
weeds thrive in the cracks between the stones.
I dig them out, chop up their roots –
they resurrect themselves.

I throw down cardboard, cover it with compost
hoping to smother the poison ivy patch that mocks me yearly.
It dies down and then smugly grows back.

I pour poison on the noxious weeds…
they eat it up and grow on.

Bindweed strangles my basil
while clothed in the white beauty of floral adornment
as though it were a wild Morning Glory,
it’s roots ten feet under the ground
safe from the menace of my shovel.

This earth will outlive me,
as she has outlived so many others – species and ages
and she will continue to send forth weeds
through the cracks between the stones.

So this morning I only sit here
with my coffee
looking out with new admiration
at the wild things in my garden.

by caf

©Carole Fults