in the open field between where I live
and the Pacific hidden behind a ridge
of oaks, last year’s tracks scatter.
No plan but move ahead through burnt umber,
topaz,—thickets of spent sticks,
the intricate webs of winter trees.
A golden flower interrupts, no bigger
than the tip of my pen
along with a flurry of bees I hurry after.
Like a madwoman I’m compelled
to trap one in my camera,
to prove bees do exist after all,
except my incessant clicks disperse
each bee but one who settles
on that single floret, poised starlike
on a string green stem, sips and sips
like receiving communion.
Drear and recent deaths fade where I stall
under a sky folding into pink. The flower
I learn, is named rush skeleton weed,
neither bee nor I in a hurry to leave.
—
Perie Longo, Santa Barbara, CA Poet Laureate (2007-09) has published four books of poetry: Milking the Earth, the Privacy of Wind, With Nothing Behind but Sky: a journey through grief, and most recently Baggage Claim as well as poems in numerous poetry journals and anthologies. Poetry Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, she is also psychotherapist who facilitates poetry writing for healing workshops at Santa Barbara Hospice.
