Photo: Wendy Thompson

Grass Widow

Early, at the heart
of the rocky Cascades
along the Labyrinth Trail
you will find me ~
slender verdant limbs
rounded tips of pleasure
open to a palisade sky
satiny purple skirts
flipped up
toward spring sunshine
I shimmer in the breeze
like pages of a secret
mistress of the meadow
blue-eyed grass
iris of your undoing

Trillium

Trinity of forest floors, remind me
as I cling, in this spring of uncertainty,
my desire to claim, possess as mine,
heightened by daily news and little sign
of peace. I seek your lesson, wood lily:
rife and wild, you are ever meant to be
white wake robin, shaded, yes. Sheltered, but free
from harsh winds and warring lives entwined
trinity of forest floors, remind me --
if I pluck violet-veined petals, nestled in ivy,
to vase as mine -- for seven years I will not see
your flower, in patches of promise, divine
golden centers of hope in precarious times.
Behold, but not hold any blossom too tightly.
Trinity of forest floors, remind me.

Rhodies

Spring is the time of almost
the not yet
the not quite
slight tug
at shoots and roots alike.
Even when we know
every year the tight pink
Rhododendron bud
will always bloom
an unearthly whitestill,
we anticipate
that Broadway sensation:
Something’s comin’
don't know what it is
but it is
gonna be great.