IN PRAISE OF DENT DE LION
Luminous yellow globes maligned as ruderals
are a gift from mother- nature for honey bees
and lady bugs and those that like their wine.
Slender stems reach for sun as tiny parachutes
spread snow kids can blow or kick around,
girls can decorate their necks with stems
little fingers can entwine.
As we rip up their roots like mindless
Monsanto’s seed police, tape worms and red
wrigglers wonder if there’s a catastrophic
earthquake on the way.
Rumbling, crumbling clods of earth is more
than worms can bear, collapsing tunnels
as they slither, aerating soil for everyone
upstairs. It’s cold, dark and dank down there,
hard enough to do their work and every now
and then someone digs them up and skewers
them on fishing hooks.
These plants are welcome cooked or raw in salads
or in soup, they’re a tonic for the liver, with more
calcium and carotene than overrated spinach.
A welcome perk: mosquitoes and predatory aphids
run the other way when they sniff their milky sap.
And don’t believe the rumor that kids who touch
them are bound to wet their bed just because some
Brits still call them “pissabeds.”
Why massacre these gentle tufts of saffron
like uninvited infidels, these dainty florets
are hardly lions teeth, they mean no harm,
just wish to share the blaze of noon.
Downstairs’ neighbors dream of one day riding
night crawlers to get a glimpse of sky filled
with shooting stars.