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Field Guide to North American Flowers: Western Region |
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Written by Kathleen Willard
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When I learn to recognize the wildflowers of the Neversummer Range
by peering inside their tiny faces
committing their Latin names to memory
nodding my head
as if explorer’s gentian was a long lost relative
dressed in blue, a ploy
to call attention to itself at the custom’s turnstile—
a signal of my exile’s end
and my new covenant with the gruff landscape—
I might feel more at ease
in the exotic Rockies.
I came across of convention of them in the headwaters
of the Poudre River
thumbed my field guide, obsessed
with knowing their name.
I add this flower to the field of Indian paintbrush,
the avens, the chiming bells
and find none of this knowing
endears me to its curative powers
championed by the ancient king of Illyria
who drank infusions of the blue broth to purify his heart.
I am still an itinerant,
more confounded than ever by the stark syllables of mountains,
a vagrant straining to decipher
the grace of gentians
and nothing, not even
the bracelets of mountains
or these small blue flowers
speaks to me of home.
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