‘Monday Evening’
Shellray Bothwell resides in the northern part of Virginia and is a self-claimed artist in photography, music and poetry. He also performs in the DMV area (District of Colombia, Maryland and Virginia) as a DJ/entertainer.
Monday Evening
Let’s now look to the dandelions growing through the bushes
one year after I stood here and thought the world
had somehow ended; praise their stubborn yellow heads
lifting themselves out of weeds and gravel and whatever else
the season piled on top of them and look to the wind
that keeps arriving uninvited, threading itself
through the oak beyond the grass, rattling the branches
as though trying a locked door, watch that oak too,
still standing where it stood last summer, though one limb
hangs lower now and the bark has opened in a place
I don’t remember.
And let’s glance at the bench with only one leg left,
leaning sideways beside the fork in the path where I
heard the news and stood staring at nothing at all,
my hand closing around a green shard of stem because
it was the only thing within reach and praise that stem,
whatever plant it belonged to, for surviving long enough
to be broken off and carried in the fist of someone
who didn’t know what else to hold. And thanks to the
sticks scattered in the dirt, especially the one with the
rock tangled in its roots that I kept kicking ahead of me
like a terrible pet; praise the way it refused to travel straight,
always snagging on something, always turning over,
always finding another direction.
People keep saying nature speaks. Maybe it does.
Maybe the dandelions are saying yes, this is you.
Maybe the grass is saying yes, even this.
Maybe every ruined thing here has spent the last year
practicing that one word. So let’s praise the weeds
and the broken wood and the path that leads nowhere special.
Let’s praise the afternoon for showing up again.
This is no time to fear. There is no time to fear.
The wind is already moving. The oak is already answering.
The dandelions are already blooming.
Paul Potts is a poet from Oklahoma. He was awarded the Jim Spurr Poetry Prize, won the 2026 The Howl Poetry Contest, and was a finalist for the inaugural Rowayat Poetry Prize. Outside of writing, he enjoys playing jazz on both the drums and vibraphone.
