How Does Your Garden Grow?

The upstairs neighbors went on vacation and left a weed-filled garden for us to care for. 

Yesterday I toiled in the 90 degree heat for two hours to achieve a weed-free, fully-mulched garden.

Weeding was challenging for me emotionally. 
"Please release your life-energy back into the earth."
I kept inwardly praying to and for these little plants who grew against the odds.
O.K. I am officially a freak, but I still love myself..

It truly bothered me, though.
I really identify with weeds.
Weeds are actually quite beautiful if you take a moment to appreciate them.


I was also reminded of a poem I read in high school that really resonated with me, and still does:

Identity
by Julio Noboa Polanco

Let them be as flowers,
always watered, fed, guarded, admired,
but harnessed to a pot of dirt.

I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed,
clinging on cliffs, like an eagle
wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks.

To have broken through the surface of stone,
to live, to feel exposed to the madness
of the vast, eternal sky.
To be swayed by the breezes of an ancient sea,
carrying my soul, my seed,
beyond the mountains of time or into the abyss of the bizarre.

I'd rather be unseen, and if
then shunned by everyone,
than to be a pleasant-smelling flower,
growing in clusters in the fertile valley,
where they're praised, handled, and plucked
by greedy, human hands.

I'd rather smell of musty, green stench
than of sweet, fragrant lilac.
If I could stand alone, strong and free,
I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed.

 

 

weed-free garden top view, funny how some of the plants could be mistaken for weeds