Weeds Make Haste

Weeds are an important part of life.

In his play Richard III William Shakespeare wrote, "Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste." -- using a garden metaphor to explain the political problems of the day.

And I am certain that May Sarton, gardener and essayist, had weeds in mind when she penned the following:
"True gardeners cannot bear a glove
Between the sure touch and the tender root."

Philosophers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson seem to like them --
"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered."

But poets like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow do not --
"Take care of your garden
And keep out the weeds,
Fill it with sunshine
Kind words and kind deeds."

And botanists seem ambivalent --
"For me, a weed is a plant out of place." (Donald Culross Peattie)

There is even "weed dating", a garden-based process for those in the mate-hunting game to meet someone new.

But, whether you consider them to be an apt analogy, a guilty pleasure, the ultimate pain, or a road map to romance – without them, there would not be no such thing as weeding – an activity that I, at least, would sorely miss.

There is comfort in

the simple act of weeding –

if you’re not the weed.