Milkweed

I looked for a spring poem, and I found a few, but then I chanced again on this one that I read a few days back after yoga. And I noticed the line "each one was once young and delicate," and I thought, well, that was probably in the spring.

Milkweed
Mary Oliver

The milkweed now with their many pods are standing
Like a country of dry women,
The wind lifts their flat leaves and drops them.
This is not kind, but they retain a certain crisp glamour;
moreover, it's easy to believe
each one was once young and delicate, also
frightened; also capable
of a certain amount of rough joy.
I wish you would walk with me out into the world.
I wish you could see what has to happen, how
each one crackles like a blessing
over its thin children as they rush away.

-- from 1985