Weeds Are Just Volunteers

Nobody planted the dandelion and yet here it is, holding the cracked sidewalk together with a yellow fist. We call a plant a weed when it grows where we did not invite it, which is to say a weed is a judgment, not a species. The mint escapes the garden bed and is punished for ambition. The clover fixes nitrogen for free and gets mowed for its trouble. Out past the fence the unmanaged green does the oldest work there is, patient and uninvited, asking no one, feeding the soil that will outlast every gardener who ever drew a line and called one side a lawn.