Looking north toward Short Sand Beach at Oswald West State Park.

‘The Dandelion’s Lament,’ by John Benson

Why do you malign me so? Do I have no right to grow?

When I push my head up tall, you try to pull me roots and all.

When brute force fails to make me dead, you pour chemicals upon my head.

My sailing seeds were your young delight, now they just make you more uptight.

Just who decided I was a weed? And gave no chance my case to plead?

I was not always regarded so, ‘ere 1800 your ancestors did my value know.

They’d pull the grass and did not mow, so useful plants like me could grow.

Today my presence makes you rant, yet I am still a very useful plant.

You may not consider me delicious, but I am indeed quite nutritious.

I bring up minerals from deep below, so I and other plants may better grow.

I see the plants you buy at your favorite store, they are mostly just a bore.

You primp and toil and fret, yet most will shrivel and die you can well bet.

From few will you such bright color see, I make the pollinators dance with glee.

My brightness is the accent keen, for your lawn’s quite boring green.

Remember I ask no work from you, no planting, watering, nor feeding must you do.

For you I’ll just keep blooming strong, the whole spring, summer, fall season long.

Would you love me more if I were orange, red, purple or blue?

Since when is yellow no virtue? Would you love me more if I were bigger and taller? Or maybe just a wee bit smaller?

Would you love me more if my leaves were bland in flavor, like the salad greens that you so savor?

Would you love me more if you had to plant me in a neat row, and then pray for weeks that I might grow?

Dear friend, I suggest a truce. I’m tired of your grand abuse.

You wage a war you cannot win, to be my friend you should begin.

Let me live my life in peace and celebrate when my numbers do increase.

Look down and see me smiling up at you.

To smile back is the least that you can do!

‘New Hatch,’ by Florence Sage

Grasses blow feathery green on downriver pilings,

as cormorants spread glossy wings to a warming sun.

Sea lions flop and oink on the boat ramps.

Fruit trees burst out blossoms. Lawns get cut.

Spring has returned to this bewildered era.

Water birds rest again on the bay

across my street. They murmur and call at night

through my open window to drift me to sleep.

A world of birds heads north to Alaska.

Migrating herds of caribou run ahead of the wolf,

to the northern rim of the Yukon.

Across the Pacific world, Albatross chicks break

from their shells, loopy and soft in the sun,

their wings stumpy and shaggy.

I have hope for their soaring magnificence,

they’re good luck and we need it.

I ought to trust this spring.

Get my wary self out to shops

with shots and boosters in my arm

and my new home tests

for annuals, seeds, baskets and pots,

and maybe a cautious glass outside a bistro

where there’s poetry starting back up,

almost ready to drop the mask

if I can remember who I was without it,

my old forgotten self, can I find it, do I want it,

and what if I don’t?

Maybe just start over like a new spring hatch,

all fuzzy and hungry and loud.

‘Water Ouzel at Short Sands,’ by Linda Hoard

Bobbing songbird that swims,

the slaty dipper sips the river.

Smolt wriggle down the mountain,

streams into an ocean which

cannot taste a saltless river.

Imprinted in each sea-breathing cell,

every salt-glazed scale is the channel

home, the water under the bridge.

What if we knew every

rapid, chute, cascade

of our passage home?

Perhaps, after we bruise

down bouldered currents,

our spirits lift in river mist

or float like loose spider silk

or zip off like the dipper

leaving the stony stream,

water dripping off her wings.