They say to write what you know,
but what if there is nothing left to show?
Nothing to paint but green on green,
and all there is to see—already seen.
No fresh petals curl up from the dirt,
and meaning hangs like an ill-fitting shirt:
stretched and shrunken, thin and over-bleached;
stained or grey, while all that once was bright is leached.
The colors bled away by excess laundering,
like this poet’s fruitless pondering.
She who just learned to walk has run for half an hour,
then plucks a dandelion and calls it, “Flower.”
It takes a mind ruined with age and greed
to see this yellow burst of May and name it, “Weed.”
Dandelions
