Attractions (poem)

Attractions

Cultivar: Fabiola

Family: Verbenaceae

Common name: Lantana

  Plunging deep into the nectar,

but avoiding the foliage (fragrant,

evergreen, poisonous),

this butterfly 

like some zooming bee

connects me

to my past when I played

King on the Mountain

with Emmett Moore and the boys

in their jeans and striped t-shirts,

on a rolling lawn (watch the sprinklers)

just off Mountain Street in

Glendale, California…

With one difference

(could but will not lie):

     I rarely achieved that

yellow-orange and golden

butterfly moment

with wings unfurled to sky.  

Simply, they threw me down the hill

and I was never King or Queen…

of any mountain. No matter—

Today, I capture the Lantana

fragrance even living in the East.

    So when I see that plant

in front of a real estate office

in nearby Catonsville—growing in a pot—

I look both ways,

then always pick a flower,

hold it in my hand, then roll

it between my fingers, wait a moment...

and leisurely drink it in. 

Kay Weeks,  February 2012 
And shared on 3.3.2012 
Thanks to Lora Robertson and Caroline Gill.