Just Now

This is the first 2014 bloom on one of the few survivors of my attempt to be ecologically responsible by growing California Native Plants. It is the California native Douglas iris. I once saw a field of them in bloom overlooking the Pacific. My first plant has multiplied into many more, but they get too much shade now to bloom heavily. The bloom has a dainty delicacy that I love; and reminds me of the many happy wildflower hikes I took with the local CNPS group, and the many wonderful wildflower meetings (you meet the most interesting people!) I went to when I didn't mind driving to Palo Alto in the dark. Several years ago I gave my native plant library to Jane who then planted a splendid California Native Plant front yard. And then, as things turned out, she moved to Canada, but the people who bought the house are maintaining the garden nicely, I heard recently.

Here's another poem about memory from my almost complete Ted Kooser library.

Just Now

Just now as I look down
the cool street of the past, I can see
streetlamps,one for each year,
lighting small circles of time
into which someone will step
if I squint, if I try hard enough---
circles smaller and smaller,
leading back to the one faint point
at the start, like a star.
So many of them are empty now,
those circles of roadside and grass.
In one, the moth of some feeling
still flutters, unspoken,
the cold darkness around it enormous.

Ted Kooser, from Flying at Night; poems 1965-1985, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press,  1985, page 93.

Follow the sound of the letter t through this poem as you follow the development of the metaphor. This poem is just great! And so beautifully constructed!