The Book of Friends #5 (R L)

Again you mock the simpleton, laugh,
your ribald expression shared by those who fear
historic vanity. Contempt is gladness,
condemnation superiority.
There is only misery in compassion
and more sorrow than one can bear in pity:
I imagine the dandelion's globes of puff
on their tall stalks, each like a heaven of stars,
shredded in the breezes stirred by the sun
climbing over the mists, and I think of you
rising quick to condemn, contemptuous,
the snarl of social laughter ever on
your lips. The drift of dandelion ends
against a wall—whatever shields or blocks.
I see each seed as a man utterly
without freedom driven against those walls.
But the wonder is the rootedness of weeds
waving over the withered fields in autumn.
What I mean as an image of hopelessness,
the desperate pitted against the pitiless,
transcends my usage, giving back more life
than what I started with … as you should know.