An Iris Beside Me

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Right here, on this, a tray of stone

there rests a thing that looks. And seed

which winter snows will craft and hone,

a billion petals set to breed.

Encircling the pistil’s glint,

a ring of rubber, husk of tire.

A common sight, such things, in Flint,

where no more windows seek to hire.

 

This land of plants that yield to work

will still be land in foreign years,

possessive of each whim and quirk

and watching as the marrow veers.

Down again I look, refocused;

patient grave and songs of locust.

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