The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1968, Page 24

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Spring 1968
by Paul A. Sigurdson
Weeds! Weeds! Weeds!
Harrying the farm-barons of Saskatchewan,
The peasants of the Steppes,
And the old maid in her plot;
Crossing borders in silent invasion,
To swarm neglected places.
Nettles snarl bare ribs of broken homesteads;
Ragweeds, blotter-leaved, suck at the sun,
And starve the finer seedlings;
Foxtail cankers the heifer’s mouth;
And the dry thistle pricks the calloused palm of the farm boy
To explode his first full-blown curse.
Everywhere weeds,
Varied and deep as man’s sins;
Creeping in silent protest of civilization:
Relentless, stubborn, unyielding,
Feeding on the rottage of the world.
Theirs a primitive independence,
Renegades of the earth,
Vandal-like, terrifying;
Theirs a contempt for selection,
Waging civil war perpetual,
Uncontrolled by reason,
Glorying in riot;
Strong weed, strangling weak-weed,
And the coarse, the tender,
Without rules.
Long has the weed been enemy,
Bending man downward, clayward,
Like faults,
Which cramp the winging of his dreams.