The Yellow Butterweed

Humble and common,

The yellow butterweed populates field and ditch, and

Every patch of high ground gracing the swamp.

Bright, many-blossomed, tough, beautiful—

It is a story of creation done right.

Prolific, abundant, invasive,

It grows as tall as sunlight and water and earth will permit,

Growing and blooming before spring’s coming,

It is a sign we need. 

But there is more—

The humble, common butterweed

Shelters and feeds tiny black ants

Which have their lives in the yellow flowers’ forests.

And still more—

When spring does come, and

The great yellow butterweed will declare

An end to yellowness and an end to waving in the wind,

It will return to earth to nourish life to come.

--February 4, 2013