Late Bloomer

More important than spring's anguish

—from which color is scarcely wrung—

is summer's gush of flowers, the sun's beat

intent on burgeoning, the creeks spinning out

like unsnarled reels—

so that we should all feel free to choose

which phrase, for instance, we might covet:

the clock with funereal tones struck noon

or Yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty

moves away the pall...

It's time to bloom! The middle season orders.

And so things do: columbine, aster, rose,

geranium, milk vetch, corydalis

and last, the alpine gentian

which in truth I've never seen, yet

how hard can it be to imagine?

Large sky-blue petals opening in September

like the lids of tired eyes

that have been too long under sleep's delusion,

until Awake! Awake! Again the light's effusive clock

shakes up the shadows, and it seems so easy now

for those of us healthy, with adequate means

or blessed with resilient spirit

to rise, determine our unfurling,

to take in the dew and the arched dawn.

Anne Coray’s debut novel Lost Mountain was published in 2021 with West Margin Press. Read more.


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Heracleum lanatum (Cow Parsnip)

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Returning to the Butchart Gardens