Over the Years, My Garden Grows Wild

I wish I was beside her,
but I'm not, I'm gone.
-Bob Dylan

I've made a mess of this garden,
the daisies have gone to pot.
The tulips are fading too.
Pulling dandelions is a pain
like dull clenched fists
rapped upon a concrete door.
The scrapings deep in my knuckles
and the fetid weed fast in my fist,
and the choking fugue,
the dusty, yellowing haze of tiny seeds,
and each pretty little sun-head
perishes into a thousand more,
as the suffer,
my cultivated beauties,
the sweet simple daisies,
blind to lusty propagation,
and the elegant tulip indifferent,
they suffer.
As I pull the milky stalks and race about,
trying to beat the flowing sordid fluff,
Each mellow bursting sun-head is
a fraction of beauty
who's sum is meaningless,
for a thousand dandelions is less
than a pink tulip petal
kissed with dew,
and a daisy cherished in the afternoon.