Home Flower

Listen, I will speak their names–
larkspur,
trillium,
stream violet,
fairy lantern,
vetch,
vanilla leaf.
I look out into the green
and read their leaves, like language, like words on a page.
I hear them speak, and know their songs,
how the wind rustles them,
how the pathfinder-plant flickers green and white,
how the sedge whistles and bows.
I could not be lost, could never be lost, no matter how far I wandered,
as long as these plants were there,
for they are the known world,
the avens with its sticky seeds,
the spirea with its bright pink bursts,
the glow of a dogwood when the sun is above it.
As long as they are with me, I am home.