Heartsease
written by: Kim Ports Parsons
I’m pulling weeds from a tangled garden bed.
It’s impossible to stop invasives returning.
Rudbeckia and aster shine in September’s glow,
despite the bindweed and purslane burgeoning.
Weeds are just unwanted plants. Not the wild pansy,
heartsease, with its simple, sweet face,
so I leave it here and there, let it seed and spread.
Year after year, the bittersweet reappears.
Bits of its orange roots, left behind, send up shoots.
I married late, after too much yearning.
Jilted by exotics, by temperamental varieties
I fell in love with for their show. That’s all thrown
to the compost heap these days. Native plants,
milkweed or goldenrod, show what thrives
and lasts and needs no fussy tending.
There will always be weeds to pull and toss,
like old pain. In his face I found an old friend,
like the heartsease, weaving its way through the meadow.
- Heartsease - September 13, 2026
