Cove Hardwoods and Wildflowers

 

flowers echo perfection

every flower echoes perfections best it can,

I stop, kneel down and use my camera

to capture what it can of beauty, gratuitously offered,

my next steps open me to another window

from which early spring gives me another gift,

when I stand back up, the hillside is a chorus, 

each flower a note which harmonizes with the others,

and I cannot listen hard and well enough

so that I can hold what is before me

with my ear, withy heart, with my soul,

for my capacity to hold is so much less

than nature’s capacity to give,

our walk takes some effort rom the bodies 

as cove hardwoods love steepening slopes,

the flowers continue sing before us:

new flowers, new angles from which to see them,

we find trillium, hepatica, spring beauty, 

Dutchman's breeches,

 

miterwort, foam flower, trout lily,

and such a profusion of fringed phacelia,

that we are undone by the extravagance

of so many perfect, detailed individuals

who for a few weeks, together, dominate the upper cove,

and then wild ginger captures us,

almost as if the flowers are presents

under the tree of their leaves,

we drive down the valley about a mile, stop,

and blood root, our favorite, shouts at us,

by the road, enough flowers have their own enticing melody,

many nearby bloodroot have already moved from flower to seed,

how wonderful, that this most ephemeral, belts forth its song before us,

blood root is fleeting, 

particular in its habit, 

a crowning jewel we love to find.

by Henry H. Walker

March  29, ‘22