Between the Cracks

Dandelions puncture sidewalk seams, their yellow faces tilted toward the sliver of sky between buildings— they don't ask permission.

A sparrow nests in the guttering, weaves dry grass and plastic thread into something whole. Knows instinctively how to make home from nothing.

Beneath the park bench, an ant city reconstructs itself after rain, engineers routing around a pebble, a thread of purpose through the mud.

We call these things weeds, pests, intrusions. But perhaps they are teachers—showing us how to bloom anyway, to belong everywhere.