Yellow Is Our Yard

Few things feel as barren

as this migrant me

marching up the street

beneath a midday sheath of grey

a neighbour has waged war on Spring

Uprooting with a pitchfork

a harmless dandelion after another

He's got as many as his yard grows

a pest of chartreuse warriors

fallen into a plastic pot

Attaboy, can you pluck them all?

Only that face is a pickled-fig

with a giant potato nose

protruding from its core

" a whole lot of work," I say

" no good" he mutters in a guttural twang

as he raises from the battlefield

his bewildered eyes meet mine

I look tired but not virulent.

Then a wave of his hand

signals the end.

Alas, the strangest place this is

Perhaps it's me who refuses to see

disgrace in a golden bud

and a coy fast-seeder

brought to North America

to nourish European settlers

You could toss it in a salad

to cleanse your liver and bladder.

It may as well grant your desire

more than any other

Why all yards be "dent-de-lion" free?

So green and trimmed

So trimmed and green

not even a beetle of colour in between.

Old man, where did you come from?

with little more than a seed of hope

and now you own a piece of yard

as fit as the best, and I still wonder

Is your soul at rest?

Yellow is our yard

a child asks me barefoot on the grass

"do you want to follow a wish to see where it lands?"

Yellow is our yard

like the forests of our soul

where we grow wild

Yellow is our yard

turned into an impromptu school

as black squirrel scurry fast.

Yellow is our yard

only the sunflowers bloomed

though you toiled hard