This is the season, spring-to-be-summer, when I wrote this poem. I hope you join me to appreciate the many flowers that are sometimes called weeds. We must plant and conserve more native bushes and flowers as the lives of our bees, butterflies, and birds depend on them. Thank you for reading my poetry.
Abundant Forgiveness
As I watch off the backyard deck
the hot golden chameleon eyes
slowly rotate their petals.
The California poppies are tracking
the bright noon-day sun.
They are bee chalices glowing in green fronds.
Pieces of Eight doubloons scattered by a generous hand.
Hoof prints of a grazing Pegasus.
A constellation of monarch butterflies
pausing to sip and pollinate.
For a month, my next-door neighbor’s ignored, unkempt yard
blossoms into apricot wildflowers.
Two years ago, inspired to spring clean,
he chose this season to weed-whip.
His machine shredded the grasses and poppies
down to bare dirt.
I almost never forgave him.
But the earth didn’t hold a grudge.
Heather Saunders Estes 