Poetry

Poetry: Bearing the Light

A Poem for Gentle Things

Image Courtesy Ithalu Dominguez

Bearing the Light

White-tendriled weed
in bloom, cotton shrouds
a hundred of your hearts
each one a white world
sweet, unruly, unknowable.
A universe girdled within
your boll heart, your offspring
new galaxies of life
bearing the light.

Half-torn, each clinging heart
even naked a celebration —
cespitose pearls feather
embracing the warmth
of what remains.

Yet, toxin too — within
your florets, reaching out
in starbursts of cotton.
Each one alive, shimmering
even into darkness
even as, powerless,
you succumb to blight.
They call you noxious
injurious. Wildflower —
yes, clover, ivy, goldenrod,
nettle, mustard seed,
but you — dark heart
must not linger.

*This poem first appeared in Penumbra in 2016.