BINDWEED Poem by Jan Wagner

do not underestimate the bindweed,
its need for wreathe and stifle rooted deep
in its name - hence the blossom, blinding, white,
as chaste as a tyrant's dream.

like an ancient crime, an unpaid debt,

it returns to haunt a scene. by cover
of darkness, beneath the fields or a lawn,
it sends out feelers, fires a riot,

rises glorious in green. behind the barn,
convolved in cypress or bean, the unkind
climber spirals; a seething, creeping spume

it twines up walls and roan, choking
windows and drain, trumpeting, binding, abiding,

till nothing breathes but bindweed, and nothing more is seen.