Weedy Cameos

I.
no one
claims undying love
for weeds growing by the roadside
no respect
yet each one lifts up a flower
wild with its beauty—a gift
untamed

II.
twisting
around everything
tap root beyond the reach of spades
yet—look—see—
bindweed lifts pink-tinged white trumpets
like faded morning glories’
soft song

III.
sun rise
between crumbled cracks
in pavement—bright dandelions
prowl and growl
furry golden faces—salad 
greens for free—wind-blown seeds float
away

IV.
tiny
yellow petals gleam
among the leaves but none embrace
puncture vine
blooms that disperse sharp goat-heads—
bicyclists curse thorny fruit—
flat tire

V. 
milkweed
of the horsetail breed
whirl of leaves lifts an upside-down
umbrella
of small white flowers—then thin pods
burst with treasure—round seeds with
feathers





Janet Ruth




Janet Ruth is a New Mexico ornithologist. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. She has recent poems in Fixed and Free Quarterly, Tulip Tree Review, The Ocotillo Review, Sin Fronteras, Ekphrastic Review, and anthologies including Where Flowers Bloom (The Red Penguin Collection, 2022). Her sonnet “Invisible Before Us Untouched and Still Possible” won a Laureates’ Choice Award in the 2022 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. A series of five of her poems won the 2019 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award for Poetry. Her first book, Feathered Dreams: celebrating birds in poems, stories & images (Mercury HeartLink, 2018) was a Finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards. https://redstartsandravens.com/janets-poetry/