Marigolds and Toadflax

Just outside the chicken run rests a crisp bed 
of marigolds (useful pest deterrents, but I prefer
their sister, calendula). Volunteers, each year 
they seed the bed with gold. I suppose that’s fine. 
Nearby lives yellow toadflax—wild snapdragons, 
also known, appropriately so, as butter and eggs—
invasive, dainty, medievally medicinal, stubborn foe 
a beauty-loving eye always humors early season, 
hungry for green and any bloom, until the hands 
begin unraveling endless lateral roots, rhizomes
smartly breaking off to protect their mother’s
whereabouts—an impossible to find tap root.

Every year these two overtake whatever 
I plant in their stead: heirloom tomatoes, 
potatoes, poppies. Up come delicate interlopers
sipping irrigation hoses. Let us help, they say, 
like toddlers in a kitchen. Let us spread the butter, 
break the eggs! Let us bang the orange tambourines
in this, your favorite quiet corner! By fall the marigolds
win my eyes. Their last bit of color stays still spring.
It is said the dead and gods are drawn to them.
But toadflax! I confess to life, to love, I do let grow 
what chooses growth, until the quiet no, that low 
voice in the bones: I cannot justify invasion anymore.