Poem from the Garden
One of the things I love the most about nature
is how it's not made for us. Caves aren't meant
to be walked in, oceans not meant to be crossed.
We manage it, with help, but it's our job to fit into
the needs of the world that was created, not claim
unearned dominion. So when I say the Evening
Primrose I planted on the front drive is ugly, what I
mean is that I planted it so it would bloom, soft and
lovely for the AA meeting at 7 on Sundays, a night-
blooming flower for a night-blooming community
of need. It bloomed day and night from March to August,
7 feet tall and rising, crayon yellow flowers with none
of the subtlety of carefully-cultivated roses. This
Evening Primrose is native, wild, un-GMO-ed. Its stalks
are now absolutely brimming with seeds and I had worried,
for a while, how the birds would eat them, small as they were.
But those deeply ugly, tusked stalks, those pinky-long
grey husks left-over when the flowers depart, they are
the perfect width for a Towhee's foot. Because while God
did not make the Evening Primrose for humans to enjoy
she surely made them for the birds.
