Sep 6
Feb 28
The bulbs push shoots up, invisible until they blow apart.
The lichen population is not impressed by spring stirrings.
Boiling, freezing, drought or flood, they’re good, they’re perpetual.
On the shadow side, north facing, the last snow patch lingers.
The branch roars, swollen from the recent rain and the recent snow.
Passing cataracts and icicles,
from the twin springs just below the ridge, down this far,
down to the branch, on to the Mississippi, to the Gulf.
The crocus bulbs have called spring!
The light stripey ones,
delicate and bright,
already sticking to the bee’s knees as she crawls inside
to work, drunk on the golden pollen.
The deep purple clump
And the grandest bloom of all,
serene, imperial,
except for the pollen knocked around her ankles.
Rapture and ravishing.
Sep 5
The color’s right, but
I’m not persuaded these can be crabby apples,
half the size of grapes.
White with yellow pollen curls, one shy bee.
White and golden pollen.
Pale butter yellow, minutes from finishing.
Halloween orange and pollen gold.
Softly spikey, opening for business.
Spiral down and out, dusted from the day’s work.
A table treat, just beyond my screen,
table treasure cut.
Meanwhile, in the grass, sign of summer’s end,
previews colors to come.
Aug 9
Pretty sometimes just is,
enough, with no buts, ands, or ifs.
Bees! Pollin’s up! Limited time offer.
Even the silly flowers
and the wild willies.
Here we go again
with the pollination invitation.
It doesn’t get any better
where the bee sucks — oh, yes — right there.
Don’t be greedy, don’t crash and burn from overweighted knees,
a hundred yards from the bee tree.
The curve turns,
the dead heads tossed in the brush
free the stems to bloom again.
