Poem left in rough form
Written perhaps 18 March 1970

Weed or Flower

Would you rather be a flower
Or a thickly growing ugly weed
Craving life and fraught with power

Both get plucked up from the earth
Though each for different reasons
Cut off almost at their birth

I'll tell you what I'd rather be
I'd far rather have enduring strength
A weed I'd be most certainly

Others would begrudge my greed
And fight hard to stop my spreading
Still, I'd rather be a weed

You can grow the roots you will
And still be plucked from love or hate
In the end it's the same bill

That's why flowers grow high on trees
And why roses always have sharp thorns
And why you cloak yourself in bees

So flower and weed do loom
More alike as time passes on
Security makes weeds bloom