Self-Portrait with Vermont Forge’s Heirloom Weeder
2 Minutes Read Time
Assistant Editor Leila Chatti: “Self-Portrait with Vermont Forge’s Heirloom Weeder” is a poem about a weeder, yes, but of course more than that—it asks us to consider what we do on this earth with our limited, occasionally challenging or absurd but ultimately precious, time on this earth. The poem answers, I think, We do the best we can.
Self-Portrait with Vermont Forge’s Heirloom Weeder
that I bought online. Didn't inherit.
My mother used her fingers to find spurge,
piling its wilt beside the growing good.
If her mother ever owned a blade like this
it became an heirloom for a different
line of descent, along with the Depression
glass, chenille couch, Folgers cans filled
with silver dollars and buttons. Goods
to give life a little ease. Vermont Forge praises
the weeder’s handle—its bequeathable heft.
I think often about passing on, and sometimes
about the Depression glass. I’ll leave my kids
a few weeds to pull on their own, but they can’t
yet see why it matters: setting things in order,
bettering what we’re able. I wish I were able
to make peace with the ground, unwilling to give
me what I’m certain I’m owed. All that flourished
this year was the spurge, and the shame
of that has made me cry more than once,
just like I cried when the beetles came
for my cucumbers and when the coreopsis failed
to return and when one portulaca stemmed up
in September, too late to make good.
And goodness, good grief—here it was anyway.
