When I grasp a fat dandelion stem close to the dirt
and wiggle it back and forth like a tongued milk tooth,
and I feel the earth give way as a tiny shock wave
propagates fissures in the circle of surrounding soil,
and I extract the juicy taproot in one piece
like meat from a cracked crab leg, I thank the weed
for growing where I don’t want it, I sigh with release.
It’s like scratching an itch deep between the shoulder blades,
this uprooting. In the cleared space I can imagine anything:
pebble garden, tulip bulb, sparrow’s dust bath.
Or nothing, until the next generation of sawtoothed leaves
roars out of the ground. I’d miss them
if they didn’t grow back, the little lions. I’d miss our tango of advance
and retreat, the one in my hand ever renewed
behind my back. Later the dandelion rides like a saffron rajah
on an elephant of yard waste to the county compost pile,
feeding life in another season. If a knot of fear
should take hold behind my breastbone,
let this hour in the garden shake it loose. Nothing
is ever wasted—see the worms turning over
in the new-made absence, their work persisting
within an altered space. Consider the ache in my haunches
from squatting, and the new muscle fibers in response
knitting themselves under my skin. Think of the way
the root lets go of the soil and the soil lets go of the root,
and the fist opens up to the light, dropping everything,
in a state of emptiness and waiting that’s beginning
to look a lot like bliss.
–
Lisa Morin Carcia’s poems have appeared in Eunoia Review, Talking River Review, North American Review, Connecticut Review, Floating Bridge Review, Alimentum, and elsewhere. When she’s not writing poetry, she works in the digital financial services field. She lives near Seattle, Washington.