Louise Bogan’s Journey Around the Calendula in Her Garden

To me, one silky flower is like another.
Most offer shameless buds of lust or pride.
These few flourish as well as any other.
Tame, like women, but with a wild side.

Most flowers offer buds of lust or pride.
For them there’s no growth beyond all reason.
Tame, like women, there is no wild side.
They are content to thrive confined.

For them, there’s no growth beyond all reason
or rows in summer gardens. It’s their season
to be content, to thrive confined,
to wait for rain, to open to the sun’s bright light

in rows in summer gardens. It’s their season.
For me, it is better to remain still,
to wait for rain, to open to the sun’s bright light,
to listen intently for that brazen bee.

For calendula, it’s better to remain still,
to flourish as well as any other,
to listen intently for that brazen bee.
To me, this silky flower is like no other.

Deborah H. Doolittle, having lived in lots of different places, now calls North Carolina home. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of Floribunda and three chapbooks, No Crazy Notions, That Echo, and Bogbound. Editor of Brillig: a micro lit mag, she shares a home with her husband, four housecats, and a backyard full of birds.