Pasque Flowers' Spring Dance

Published in The Manzanita Quarterly

Spring comes late to the Rocky Mountains.

Pasque flowers

cupped close to the ground

toward the mountain sky

try to decide the day.

Sunlight shines through the clouds

and the flowers open.

The clouds close,

and so do the flowers

Small white flowers with yellow centers, close to the ground,

bloom, and pink mountain ball cactus flowers, with yellow centers,

and tiny, light pink flowers tight against granite stone.

I think I will learn the flowers' names,

not the names of types, pasque, mountain ball cactus,

daisy, given by other lumbering-above-them humans,

but individual names, soft, petally, of delicate smells,

shy as spring sun behind densely blowing grey clouds

If I watch one flower open and close several days,

sit through unsheltered spring nights with it,

it will tell me its name, in odors, in motions

of opening and closing dance, in humble attitudes

saying one season's beauty, even unobserved,

and seed for the future is enough to live for.