Would we think they were beautiful if we didn’t know they were weeds?

weeding

by Helen Battersby

A gardener must not love a dandelion.

Its rays must not hook a gardener’s heart

or show themselves as stars upon the hills,

gold on the imperative of green.

A gardener must not love the silken spheres

of one-o’clocks; must not count the hours

to liberate the feathered children,

sown across the sky on wind and breath.

A gardener must not love a dandelion;

must not love the place its children land

to drill insistently within the earth,

mining their crowns of lion’s teeth.

A dandelion just rewards such love

by clinging fiercely to the scruff of life.