weeds – sethlewis.ie

Windowsill Posies (a poem)

My wife and I were walking recently down a stretch of path that isn’t particularly beautiful, on the back side of an industrial estate. Suddenly she paused—

“I just want a few of those purple flowers over there.”

“I don’t see any purple flowers?”

“That’s because you’re not looking.”

Which was true. I wasn’t. I had not paid any attention to the unkept grass beside us. She took the flowers home and made a little posy for the windowsill, as she often does. And that’s what this poem is about.

Windowsill Posies

As we walk on the way
you see a bouquet
where I only noticed some weeds

as you gather them in
I’m looking again
and the beauty is there, I agree

the world that you show me
in windowsill posies
is teaching my eyes how to see

The Little Weeds

It used to be a vacant lot, in the middle of town. Over months and seasons the grass and weeds have slowly given way to rows of potatoes, apples, carrots, pumpkins, onions, and more. This is our local community garden. We even have a poly-tunnel that fills up with tomatoes, lettuce, and courgettes that grow bigger than my forearm. Some of our volunteers are keen gardeners with plenty of knowledge and experience, and then there are people like me and my wife, ready to do as we’re told. This year, I’ve spent a lot of my time in the garden on one job in particular: killing things.

Rivers, Not Lakes

There’s a small lake in our village with a path around it and an island in the middle where a pair of swans make their nest every year. When the cygnets are born, they’re grey and fluffy and clumsy until they grow up and slowly become majestic. Eventually they all fly away and I don’t know where they go. Then every year one couple returns and there’s a new nest and eventually new cygnets.

The cygnets and ducklings and baby coots (cooties?) on the lake make the place a lot nicer to visit, because there are certain times of the year when the water isn’t much of an attraction on its own. It has the typical problem that most small lakes have: it tends to grow green and manky with pondweed and algae and such, especially in the summer. Some summers are worse than others, but even on a good year (like this one) there are still places where the weeds are thick enough that the little cooties can walk around on them instead of swimming.

The Weeds (a poem)

You don’t know how bad the weeds are until you try to plant and keep a garden. In a similar way, as C.S. Lewis put it, “no man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” These are the things I was thinking about when I wrote this poem: