Scilla

I had to ask a friend for the name of "that flower." I never knew it before. My mother, the gardener, called it a weed. It is only blue for awhile in the spring, but now I know it has a name. Now I know I can plant it and it will spread where it wills. It will light up the shade.

Every spring I encounter

Blue carpets

On stray lawns,

Blue I have to remember again

Each spring.

I have never lived in a house

With such blue.

When I grew up

The next door neighbor

Had a shady patch which blued

Each spring.

I didn’t encounter it again

Until a few years ago now

On a walk around some block

Somewhere.

Now that blue appears

When we are late to church

And park a block and a half away.

I dreamed that blue last night,

A patch of flowers grew

In my living room.

When I looked out the back door

The blue covered the lawn,

A blue carpet

On my grass.

It was a Visitation

It was an Annunciation

It was Holy