Taproot

Stooping to pull up a weed,
I think of my father
who made of weeding an art.

After work, he’d take a bucket
and his weeder from the tool shed
and clear an area of a yard he knew

would never look manicured,
whose quality would, at best,
be like something homemade.

He’d set the bucket upside down
and sit on it. Plotting a route
he’d shift the bucket, a move

so deft you might think he was just
leaning out to extend his reach.
He knew exactly where and what angle

to drive the weeder down,
north and south of the weed,
without severing its taproot.

When my father worked like this,
making small mounds he’d later
gather up in his bucket,

the dog would sniff at his bare feet
then lie down in the shade his body made.
Grounded there, he was most himself,

his hunger for perfection and control
giving way, finally, to the work itself.
It was easy to love him then.

Copyright © by Debra Kang Dean