More Poetry From Boreegard

The Once and Future Garden

It says in Moses’ old book,
That God made a big garden,
To the east of Eden.
It had every tree and plant ever
Imagined by HIM whose name we cannot know.

We favor the popular ones—
Johnny Chapman spread Eve’s apples across,
The fruited plain; Norwegians and Swedes plowed the
Prairie sod into amber waves and such.
Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?

For all of that, consider what we sapheads ignore or denigrate,
Thinking of them simply as weeds—trash.
Look at the Joe-pye weed growing unbidden in the ditch,
Clinging tenaciously to the lip of the cultivated field,
Next to the giant mullein, poke, milkweed.

The storied Wampanoag Joe Pye cured typhus’
Deadly fevers with his namesake, back when Indian herbals reigned.
How many more weedy secrets remain hidden, pilgrim,
Waiting to be discovered and used for the greater good?


Boreegard
November 17, 2013