Bloom

There will never be(e) a photo
of a flower that doesn’t make my heart bloom.

Autumn Litany

Gladdening skies greet the Autumnal Equinox.

Earth’s journey dims as mine begins.

Yellow. Gold. Pink. Purple.

Roadside flowers.

Ruderal species have advantage.

Opportunists, they

thrive in disturbed margins.

I chant their names in concert

with their fall reappearance.

Yellow. Gold. Pink. Purple.

Goldenrod tall on the shoulders

Sentinel flag. A waving banner.

Dips in the car’s slipstream.

Purple Gerardia / hairy false foxgloves,

in balloon-bud, vow clouds of fuchsia.

Here a riot of pink Morning Glories

open-throated, sing in cool crispness. Climbing over

fences. Rosy pink gleaminess.

While whiter cousins, Man-root glories

trumpet with violet gullets.

Joined by the mauve Asters.

Constellations of petals.

Button composite centers.

Perfect bunches.

Pink knotweed spikes.

Minuscule buds like clustered

Pearls. I know you too.

Yellow. Gold. Pink. Purple.

In flooded ditches shrubs–

Marsh Mallows. Hibiscus moscheutos.

Wild cotton they call you. Your cultivated cousins

stand in rows. You, though, are unruliness.

Shrubby excess. A gleam of white

at the edge of dark woods. Your throat

deep purple unseen at sixty miles an hour.

Yellow. Gold. Pink. Purple.

Dotted Horsemint. Whorls its stem.

Fills ditches in gleeful resurgence.

Yellow. Gold. Pink. Purple.

Upland, purple blue morning glories

anthem of delight. Intensity.

And a final chorus.

My floral recital.

Every verse spoken.

Ritual. Seasonal reappearance.

My fall litany. Anthem really.