Weeding

Each humblest plant, or weed, as we call it, stands there to express some thought or mood of ours; and yet how long it stands in vain! - Thoreau

i want to advance without proceeding

go before without preceding

receive without needing

surrender without conceding

sow without seeding

litigate without pleading

give blood without bleeding

deceive without misleading

be read without reading

i want to speed without exceeding

eat without feeding

hear without heeding

lie without misleading

hinder without impeding

attain without succeeding

lose hair without receding

run without stampeding

suckle without breastfeeding

perhaps i'm just an unfortunate example of inbreeding

Author's Note

"If a man is rich and strong anywhere, it must be on his native soil. Here I have been these forty years learning the language of these fields that I may the better express myself. If I should travel to the prairies, I should much less understand them, and my past life would serve me but ill to describe them. Many a weed here stands for more of life to me than the big trees of California would if I should go there. We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing." - Thoreau