A Flower in the Weed Patch
My morning walk came to a sudden stop
at the most misplaced flower
I have ever seen.
It was a beautiful morning
and my thoughts were on the
sorrow kilter of the world.
In the middle of the thistle weeds
was a beautiful daffodil
boldly announcing spring.
So happy a yellow
so gracefully beautiful
but is not it brash to be in such company?
It tempered not its color
or beauty to fit
the company it was keeping.
Down the path were weeds
and flowers
each in their proper patches.
So why the daffodil in the middle
of a weed patch,
chance or planned order?
If order,
is it as a model,
a teacher of what is possible?
If chance,
is it a sign
that given time and trial beauty is possible?
I have no answer
as it is arrogant to
assert an answer to the unknowable.
But to speculate
it may be a poet’s metaphor
answering an age-old question.
From the starting time of time it has been asked:
why do the genteel and kind
walk among the barbarians?
A flower among thistles,
a saint among the sinning ones
chance or order, what does it matter?
Doug Minnis
March 19, 2011