Bloodroots

March 19, 2008

The Equinox is a day away, and under a heavy spring rain my daffodils blaze little suns–I thought I planted different kinds, but they all seem to have come up a single blinding gold, which is all right with me–and in the shadow of the cottage, one night-blue anemone, one inch of the most electric beauty. The pulmonaria are inexhaustible. I don’t remember when I planted the crocus in full blush everywhere, most recently white with lips of purple. White blossoms rise through the folded green palms of the trout lilies. Three compact complexities of bloodroot have come through the ground, ready, perhaps, to unfold and bloom in the next sun. These are the best of all. These are the flower of the flowers.


Bloodroots

Behind the house, two bloodroots, like children holding hands in the wilderness,
arise.
I watched them from the dark of the morning, when they were furled
like pearls on green-gray threads,
their own hands reaching around and holding.
I think I would stand over them and watch through the night.
I would turn the slugs aside.
I would see if there is some further gesture in them, some posture the
two ends of the light do not tell of.

Ah!

Year after year I’ve gone into the forest looking for you,
dear ones, favored ones, above all others, peering in the brown leaves,
pawing through the bones.
This year you come for me.
You set down where you could see me when the thaw came
and all the eyes were opened.
Me at my back door, fretting, keeping watch. Who knows now for what?
I would plow the world and plant you. I would
take the month off and watch you in your changes,
your purity pumped from the blood pool
over and over, a fountain in the forest made of cool and green,
ice-crowned, with root, like all brave things, in fire.
Yes, I may have planted you myself. Let’s forget that and declare
you came the long way, seeking,
found me in a moment neither too early nor too late, or rather
almost too late, hauling me back by a white breath
when all was lost had I, one second more, gone on
the way I’d fought for all those day.

I think the wind in your white cups whispers "Ah!"

*

Kit sent me a soft green mug of his making.