Weeds

Father hated weeds
He swooped on them in the fields,
slicing off  purple heads,
thumping a grubber into the hard ground
to ferret out the roots
He cursed as thistledown drifted on the wind:
all he saw was a feathery wall – and trouble
A man, he said, had enough to do
without growing weeds
So when I knelt before his headstone,
just in front of some flowers,
I saw three, broadleafs, rising against a berm
I cut the stems off in the ground