WEED PULLER

web | The Sun Is but a Morning Star

Under the concrete benches,
Hacking at black hairy roots, -
Those lewd monkey-tails hanging from drainholes, -
Digging into the soft rubble underneath,
Webs and weeds,
Grubs and snails and sharp sticks,
Or yanking tough fern-shapes,
Coiled green and thick, like dripping smilax,
Tugging all day at perverse life:
The indignity of it! -
With everything blooming above me,
Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses,
Whole fields lovely and inviolate, -
Me down in that fetor of weeds,
Crawling on all fours,
Alive, in a slippery grave.

1948

© Theodore Roethke
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© E-publisher LiterNet, 14.02.2010
The Sun Is but a Morning Star. Anthology of American Literature. Edited by Albena Bakratcheva. Varna: LiterNet, 2008-2010