A bumper crop of weeds

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Such a crop of weeds we’ve had this year!

 

 

There’s a yard down on Cooke Street, a few blocks from our house, with weeds like nothing I’ve ever seen. Some of them are eight feet tall. There’s dwarf dandelion (it seems silly to call it “dwarf” when it’s that tall, although “dwarf” refers to the flowers, not the plant), and some pokeweed, and other things I don’t know the names of. I actually own a copy of the “Golden Guide to Weeds,” and I still cannot figure out what some of them are. They are like props in a horror movie, or background scenery in an episode of “Lost in Space.” They tower over me. (Fine. They’ll be dead in a few months, and I’ll (probably) still be here. So let them tower.)

 

 

I love weeds. I love the way they sprawl and occupy the space they’re given. I know they can be parasites, but they’re often lovely. (My father, a farmer at heart, hated weeds, and hated it when he saw me playing with things like quackgrass and cheat. I had no idea that I was doing anything wrong.) I love the resilience of weeds, and their vigor. Many of them are annuals: they grow from seed in a single season, and die. Imagine that! All that growth in a single year!

 

 

And they are common, and friendly, and green. They mean no harm. (Most of them, anyway.)

 

 

And why do you suppose we’re getting such a nice crop of them this year?

 

 

We’re getting warmer hereabouts; we’re getting a climate that’s more like the mid-Atlantic states. Climate change, you know. And the landscape, and the greenery, are responding with gladness

 

 

Lovely weather, if you’re a weed.

 

 

(Not sure if it’s so good for us people, though.)

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Poke

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Poke is a weed that grows all over the Eastern and Southern United States. I see it everywhere in Providence; it is very beautiful, and very toxic. It has deep green leaves and white flowers and juicy-looking purple berries, all of which are very poisonous if you eat them unawares. (The berries can be used to make ink; the Founding Fathers used pokeberry ink to write the Constitution.)

 

 

The leaves are (just barely) edible, if you cook and rinse them a couple of times. Some say rinse them twice; some say three times. You used to be able to buy the leaves canned, but not so much anymore.

 

 

There’s a song, by Tony Joe White, in 1968, that tells the whole story:

 

 

 

 

I don’t want any poke salad. Then again: maybe I want to know what it tastes like. Even if it’s poisonous.

 

 

I am just perverse that way.

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