Flared like the bell of a B-flat clarinet.

Head-to-head air currents. An auditory swing.

A tête-à-tête of anthers and stigmas.

A semitone lower? Floral bracts before leaves.

The precocious-flowering pussy willow.

Palette of open alluvial woods, seepage slopes.

Hoary willow notes of marly bog and fen.

Sweet gale and myrtle. Myrica’s waxy catkins.

Fragrance a wave that propagates air.

Timbre? Deciduous or evergreen.

Drupe-like fruits. Wing-like bracteoles.

Or the red-brown bark of false mountain willow.

Longitudinal splits. Yellowish overtones.

Violet

A garland to fend off the dizzies.

A garland to keep the quinsy at bay.

March closes the seeded umbilicus.

April opens the musty secundina.

Equinox the half-melt rot.

Easter the thin asquintable light.

Viola

Under Venus the sugared wound, the heart-strung-up, the viola d’amore.Under Venus the Pliny-prescribed, the horsehair hanked—not plucked, tugged—the singly sung (catgut kidney-cuffs the caterwaul, a knockback to the viola bastarda). Kittenish! A scalloped flirtatious border—floridcordial pansies (candied adoration). Viola odorata. Parfait d’Amourish.

White Flower II

after a painting by Agnes Martin

Canvas

Springbeauty. The eye unblanks the mesa. Solitary & leafless. White tackstem. Common yarrow. Wild plum. A disciplined plumb line. Boundless butte: a perfect geometry. Midvein math of spreading sandwort (100 yellow disc florets). Fibonacci the daisy tidytips. The radially symmetrical rose heath, ray-bright.

Heather the bell-ringer. Mountain pea, pony beebalm, phlox. Fringepod & pricklyleaf, the dense rosettes of Buckley’s yucca. Four-o-clock verbena the high tableland wavers. Repeating alkali marsh aster. Saltwort. Saxifrage. Mudbrick and grid. Adobe. Abide, in unblinking light. Blazing star. Sacred datura.

Taos

Sweet Alison. O sweetclover. Chickweed. Chicory. Alyssum. Alpine pennycress, Rocky mountain pussytoes, watercress and bittercress (heartleaf). Tufted evening primrose, cutleaf & pale primrose, gravel ghost, angel’s trumpet, shade-loving angelica. Desert rosemallow, marsh marigold, smallflower sand verbena.

Springbeauty (lanceleaf, scattered). Blooms for blooms’ sake: star lily, woolly bluestar, fringed grass of Parnassus. Raspberry (New Mexico). Popcorn flower (Arizona). Plateau pepperwort. Pepperweed and carelessweed. Doubting mariposa lily. Cream cinquefoil. White violet. Desert zinnia. Two-toned everlasting.

Macklin

Blue-eyed Mary. The tall meadow rue, the veiny meadow rue, the northern blue-eyed grass. Eyebright and downy paintbrush. Wild white geranium, wild wild strawberry. Whorled milkweed moreover, white flowers in terminal umbels. Sandwort, the dry dry soil. White-prairie clover, white-flowered parsley, gentian.

Springbeauty (the linear-leaved). The many-flowered aster, the rayless aster, willow aster and rush (leaves level, sessile, stem- clasping and steadfast). Bindweed, buck-bean, bellflower. Then cow parsnip, ox-eye daisy. Cow-wheat & milkwort. And lastly, anemone (heartache-flower): long-fruited; wood anemone; tall.

Root of Scarcity

To sow the remote morose root.

To sow the virtuous standby.

The backup fodder-crop suffers not

from seasonal vicissitudes,

mildew and blast, caterpillar attack.

Under Saturn sing the golden-sickled beet.

Under Saturn sing the ringed mangelwurzel.

The great turnip (the dick reuben!).

The pickled paucity-strick stew.

Corn Crowfoot, Corn Buttercup

Ranunculus, little frog, grenouillette,

Mars blisters above neap flood and neck,

mustard-nasal, the rheum and runny river,

adenoidal, tongue-sore, the decoct & decant,

the goats, the pigs, also cows turn their backs,

worms compelled to flee the earth—the toxic

hop, the spirit-inflammation, the fiery.