ephemeral, elusive, there!

blood root

today was of wildflowers,

the excessive winds of climate change

create havoc within the forests,

trails and roads suffer,

roads close yet we are still able to visit a favorite hollow,

there, early spring shouts with enthusiasm,

as our friends erupt from the soil

and reward our friendship with just being themselves:

yellow and white trillium assert color and form on the slopes,

fringed phacelia delicately carpet wherever they can,

hepatica, trout lily, miterwort, squirrel corn, sing themselves,

wild ginger quietly releases the cupped maroon flower of its glory,

three wild turkey visit this valley

at the same time as we do,

we stop to watch them,

and the male decides to display to us and to his two females,

the early sun backlights his tail feathers,

and I work hard to capture pictures 

of such audacious, gratuitous revelation,

I wonder if he is actually showing off to me,

after our going up, across, and down this hollow,

we get back to our car and slip down the valley

in search of blood root, our favorite flower of the spring,

we check where we found some a few years ago,

at the foot of the valley where the Big Poplar thrilled us,

a few leaves, seeds, maybe a bud, but no blossoming blood root,

until we hike by the road on the way back to the car,

and two blood root reveal themselves with assertion,

knowing and expressing the ephemeral reality

that this botanical royalty

shares so briefly and so elusively,

we cheer our luck.

by Henry H. Walker

March 27, ‘24