Would you rather be a Draba or a Silphium?
Being a Draba is tempting but I wish to be a Silphium. I couldn't think of anything more wonderful than growing for years and years to put my tap root into the earth so far that hours of sweating with an ax and shovel, a mattock and pry-bar, a pick and garden knife would fail to dislodge me.
I'd stand so confident, so solid, so certain in my being that a back hoe couldn't keep me from flowering in triumph, though asphalt if I chose. Yes, please, make me a Silhium and let the bison, brown and shaggy or black and white, nibble on my unbeaten stem and send Aldo to collect my seeds, future children of a simple soil world.
(Are dandelions related to Silpium? When we paved our driveway, the previous owners, dandelions, pushed through six inches of blacktop to blossom as they always had. I was cruel, dowsing them with vinegar and whomping the bumps in the paving with a sledge defeating them but recognizing that their growth was impressive.
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| silphium sunflower tribe within the daisy family |
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| draba reptans, Carolina whitlow grass |
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