What’s Wrong with Weeds?

What’s wrong with weeds? They grow from seeds

Like other plants They like the sun

And having fun By bugging ants

I gave my brother, Bill, a treat And let him have a weed to eat

My mother got real mad “Hey, Mom,” I said, “don’t be so rough;

If cows can eat the stuff, How can it be so bad?”

“Those are special weeds,” she said. I don’t know what’s inside her head,

To say a thing like that. Like in the summer all the reasons she’s got

When the air outside is blazing hot To make me wear a hat.

When I feel the need, I talk with a weed

In the corner by the fence It’s smarter than my brother

And quieter than my mother And it makes a lot more sense.

But it has to hide behind Potato peels and orange rind

That’s all piled up with grass. And when the pile has really gotten

Really stinky and really rotten, A great big smelly mass

Enough to make your nostrils harden, They put it on the vegetable garden

Now that’s what I call class.

So when they offer me a carrot I screw up my nose like a sort of parrot

And say I do not need A veggie of any kind or style

That grew inside that yukky pile I’d rather eat a weed.

Not the one that is my friend I’d never wish on him to end

His lifetime as my lunch I’d ask for his suggestion

Of a weed for my digestion And that’s the one I’d munch.

JOHN WORSLEY SIMPSON