Canada Anemone

I count nineteen white blossoms

which would not be

visible except for

their wiry stems that catapult them

above the grass like

the last white pop

of fireworks, a toothed blast

of leaf below. It’s

the Fourth of July

on the bank of Hinkson Creek

fifty years ago, the powder-

bitterness, the red

combustion, my life, since

anemos means wind, means

change, no matter

that I’ve been held all along in this

thin twenty miles of atmosphere.

The wind’s disturbed

the leaves, rolled the waves,

convincing enough. Each

star of a bloom

is driven upward almost against

its small nature. All it can do

is hang on and die.

Still, it did want to go

as high as possible,

for some reason,

to sway up there like an art object.

Copyright Credit: Fleda Brown, "“Canada Anemone”" from (: , )

Source: Poetry (November 2005)