INTO THE WEEDS

I weed this
Native Garden
Aware of metaphors
Unfolding as I decide
What stays and what goes.

There are historical
And value judgements
Entangled in the roots
Of the forbs and grasses
That present themselves.

Not so long ago
The lowlands
Of what we now call
Southern California
Were pristine Chaparral.

The plant community
Emerged as dominant
At the end of the Ice Age
When erstwhile pine forests
Moved to higher elevations.

Spanish Colonization
Then introduced
European plants, weeds
And domestic animals
That Challenged the indigenous.

The true Chaparral self
And the historically constructed
Settler-colonist Chaparral coexist.
Their negotiation is mediated
By climate.

As a gardener
Of Chaparral, I privilege
The True over the Constructed.
Should I do any less
For myself…

Nurturing, into old age
My true self
As it emerges from the thicket
Of ego and experience
That has smothered it?