Of course, there always has to be that first
moment. You dip your toes
in the cold water before you plunge. And when it doesn’t go as planned,
remember the essay you wrote,
the short story, the slow sailing
to the last line: how your eyes
moved from the last word back
to that first tentative penciled
opening at the left margin of the page,
flush. Now the ending brings you back
to where you began, and the journey
makes your opening line stronger,
even though you can’t change a word.

Extended Bloom

From dusk until dawn
the deep-throated
Four o’clock blossoms
open like painted lips.
Nocturnal pollinators
visit–the sphinx moth
and the hawkmoth–
and sup until sunrise.

Then the four o’clock
sleepyheads
purse their lips
and retract,
with a twist,
all that color–
like lipstick
that retreats
into itself,
lying dormant
in its sheath.

The bee
does not charge
a cut
when he pollinates
flowers,
yet think
what his reward is–
all that honey.

The soil is a dark room for flowers.
Have you seen a seed take root?

I’ve heard you can’t step into the same river twice.
But in the land of sunny summer days and frosty nights,
you can’t step into the same meadow twice.
Each spring is a gamble: stalks shoot up and trees bud.
But wind, hail, snow and sun have it out so that each spring,
each summer, a unique palette dazzles the eye.
One year maroon predominates; another year, it’s gold.
The odds of winning the jackpot stem from a complex algorithm of temperature and precipitation.

Some flower seeds
lie dormant for years
until one day
when sun, wind and rain
conspire to disclose
their fragrance.
Even in life, storms
disclose the faces
of true friends.
See the columbine
on the rocky outcrop
lying wait, and
springing up improbably
against the cliff-side trail.

The field guide to flowers tries
to help, offering perfect shots
of pristine flowers at the peak
of color, petals perfectly poised.
Yet when I walk through meadows,
the flowers I see are curled or crumpled,
either not yet or no longer perfectly unfurled,
like an umbrella half-opened or a flag
at half-mast. I try to identify,
to give each a name: hopeless task,
like wading through old black-and-white
photographs stored in cardboard boxes
in the attic, some of them strangely colorized
with pastel pencils. Do you recognize
the faces of your ancestors,
your great-grandparents and so on,
by their features? So it is
with flowers. In photos, the perfectly
fleshed out blossoms each occupy a single frame,
like a stamp, with no contrasting elements.

Imagine the botanist,
camera in hand,
stalking the wild blossom.
The thrill of sighting
the perfect blossom
must delight
like the first bite
of a perfectly ripened apricot.

As I walk, the field of gilia
weeps into the ground,
spending blossoms like pennies
rolling into a fountain.
To the fuzzy fly and bee,
wilted branches of fleabane
must smell as sweet
as any other blossom.
Thistle wears a thick coat
of armor to protect his scrappy blossom,
while the wild rose’s dewclaw
does nothing to obstruct
the rose’s intoxicating fragrance.

Spruce trunk: mast for a ship
with neither sail nor oar.
Clouds roll through
carrying storms
from the sea.

After a long hike
it’s hard to distinguish
the snore of my dog
from the buzzing of a fly.

Aspen on the hillside:
thin-shingled forest cover.