“life is too short to learn the names of weeds”

you’ll likely see a thousand poem titles

like the title above popping-up in the next few weeks.

consider this my entry into the fray.

but the line is attributed to a fan of Billy Collins

who sent it to his nightly podcast because recently

Billy had mentioned that he has a friend who

identified the nomenclature of every weed

they came across as they walked along a pleasant

country road somewhere on the outskirts of.. Paris, I think.

the fan, call her Naomi, seemed to be marginally pissed-off,

implying that Collins was taking-up valuable podcast time

simply because his buddy had the doggedness to identify weeds,

intruding on an otherwise pleasant stroll.

as for me, I didn't find the interlude disruptive, and

it was only a small part of a broader discussion, but

Mister Collins liked the metrics of Naomi's line and said so,

further giving his blessing to the world's home-shackled poets

to use the line freely if they were so inclined, opening a pathway

to Naomi's potential litigation against the Collins estate.

 

but that’s all I have on the subject of weeds, except to say

I’ve spoken of them before, limited to their intrusion of

the vegetable garden, their indispensable cover behind the billboards,

and their routinely invasive attitudes,–– all without gracing them with

a proper noun to cozy up to.