Weed by Weed
I’m on my knees, resigned.
I want to swipe my hand across whole swaths
of sourgrass and yank it all out at once.
But I have to mind the young iris leaves,
pick each separate weed poking up
between the tangled rhizomes.
An hour later my knees feel penitential.
The bucket’s filled with green
I’ll offer to the compost.
How could we pronounce
all the syllables of a magnificat at once?
No. We sing it word by word.
PATRICIA ZYLIUS is the author of the chapbook Once a Vibrant Field. Read More