Old Man’s Tears

There is a plant
called old man’s tears.
A thwart, disnatured thing,
tall, but crooked tall,
not bold tall like
its companions all around.

And its leaves are thinner,
but they’re fiercer,
like its flower, which, though
chewed and ragged, still
stares bright into the world.

There is maybe a melancholy
in the burdened curve
of its filaments, but
there’s a wisdom too
within the flesh of its anthers.

And, if you peer close,
there on the single stamen eye,
the limpid markings
that they call old man’s tears.