[T]ho' a Child be ever So dutiful it never repays back the cares troubles and Anxieties which Parents undergo in the raising them to the State of Manhood.

―Michael Cadet Young to his son, Thomas, ca. 1769

i.

Weed of the countryside

sprung up in swamps, over septic tanks,

neither hardy nor adaptable as dandelion

but of that ilk, commonplace.

One rare summer day, silk strands

from a far-off plant

slithered across suburban lawns

into well-kept gardens

where weeds were called "wildflowers,"

where cut stones maintained borders

real and imagined―

hair of milkweed sifting through thumbs

stroking, combing, caressing a cheek―

crinkle of skin like chitin

tough, reluctant in its new landscape.

ii.

What did I give you, child of my body?

Silk of my spirit, steel of my hide?

Are you roving weed like me, or will you plant yourself,

defenseless, among foxglove and roses?

iii.

Child in the kitchen imitates

the whir of the coffee grinder;

Papa pours him a cup of milk.

Every moment now watching,

every moment awaiting

the crackling, peeling, bursting

seeds on streamers

sallying forth,

mutatis mutandis,

please god mutable world.

CONFEDERATES

They haunt us all, the stone ghosts surveying

Southern squares, muzzle-loaders close at hand,

one ear forever cocked, as if whole hosts

encircled them still.

In a place called Tinkling Springs, raw boards once

carved with name and cross have rotted away.

Granddaddy, eighty-three, his eyesight poor,

cannot recall the site;

he clears dead leaves, uproots the vines hiding

other lost graves, shifts to keep the weight off

his bad knee.  "I could've sworn it's right here,"

he says uncertainly.

Back in town, the Tastee Freeze dishes out

soft serve, onion rings.  The smell of frying

grease drifts past the courthouse, the county jail,

soldier in the square.

Asphalt carpets the town, carpets wagon

trails our farmer boys marched off along towards

glory.  As if marching off was glory's

only requirement.

We have no Colonel Shaw, no Fifty-Fourth

Massachusetts to call our own; our boys

dug the ditch, threw Shaw's body in among

the "niggers" he had led.

Some of our boys still shoot off their guns, still

breed attack dogs, might just chain a black man

to a pickup's bumper, drunk and rebel-

yelling the whole time.

But not all.  Some heard the call: "Civil rights! 

Education!"  Some stood beside the lunch

counters, some marched with the righteous.  Some taught

their young better ways.

Granddaddy, scanning tree and stone for some

sign of his Confederate grandfather's

grave, also heard those words.  He says that folks,

his folks, just didn't think.

He tells of hiring neighbors, black men skilled

at butchering hogs.  Tired, hungry men, who

refused food rather than eat their meal at

a table set apart.

"I always treated a man like a man,"

he says now, "But I could've done better."

He limps off towards the car, clambers in, says

no more the whole way home.