Sherry Chandler » Severn Creek with Trout Lily, Dutchman’s Britches
Severn Creek with Trout Lily, Dutchman’s Britches
— for Gray Zeitz of Larkspur
For the third spring we trek
the disused county road,
deer prints pressing ground
made soft by yesterday’s showers.
In gray tiers, hardwoods rise up
toward the cedared bluffs.
The luscious glut of creekwater
riffles through us intimate as breath.
It’s early. Spring spurs its lime
among the branchtips–not yet
an exclamation. The trout lily
has performed its bloom,
but the Dutchman’s-breeches
are still furled like silken flags.
Fire pinks still smolder
hours shy of floral combustion,
the beds of bluebells
we hiked miles to see
already basking in the bottoms.
As we pass a bank of larkspurs,
each spiked floret asserting
its purple integrity, its tensile grace,
Gray, inspired, declares this occasion
the annual meeting of his board.
With a simple show of hands
the membership, each sprig, each
spacious leaf, reaffirms its policy
to vegetate the hills,
following by-laws to the letter
with each corporate tendril,
each dash of color, as we all assent
to raise, to resurrect, the dead.
— Richard Taylor, from Off the Record: An Anthology of Poetry by Lawyers
Poem used by permission of author.
Richard Taylor’s experimental novel Girty is now available from Wind Publications. Richard will be reading from Girty tonight at the First Friday event at the Kentucky Coffeetree Café in Frankfort. Performance begins at 7:00 pm at 235 Broadway. $10 admission, students $5. For more information or to reserve a table, please call Lizz Taylor at 502-223-8018
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