Resourceful Waste

I like weeds. What humans do,
Including me, including
You (yes, we, even if you
Have done less than been done to),

Has more to do with naming
Sins than curing them. What weeds
Do is thrive despite the sins
We’ve invented, sins for which

Weeds are weeds. We punish them.
We are a weedy species,
Even, only, by our terms,
The kind of weedy species

That invades stored resources,
Radiates in strangling ropes
Through diverse, balanced gardens
And blanches grounds around them.

Life lays waste to resources,
Makes wastes that make resources
For more desperate lives to waste.
In Utah’s southwest desert,

I am leaning on crutches,
Washing dishes wastefully,
Watching the lawn I don’t own
That owners water for me,

That owners have resodded
And mowed level recently,
Green lawn after several months
Without rain, blooming with weeds.