After I heard about Cindy's death -- and not able to think, just feel -- I came to a poem that is about Cindy (and about all of us who love Cindy). Here it is:
Wildflowers
(For Cindy Harrison)
By Lois Easton
We didn’t know we were wildflowers.
No chateau orderliness, bungalow borders;
No tea sipped in our midst, no walls or hedges
Around us. We were wildflowers.
We gathered somehow, a community of
Single flowers, several, many.
Organized ourselves according to no
Color schemes, shapes, or sizes.
Brought together by soil right for all of us,
Nurturing; right rain, absorbing; right
Light, learning. Bound by these, bound to each
Other by love. Strangely bound to
The people who see our brave blooms,
Seek the “courage with which we grow anywhere,”
“Bloom with ferocity and light.” And, in a way,
We become pollinators.
A wildflower garden. A pollination garden. We
Are also a memorial garden, some of us picked
For other purposes, other times, other places.
So soon, our ethereal flower, the Stargazer Blue Iris.
Then, the sweet-smelling, White Alyssum, the quiet
Flower. And, too soon, the classic flower, the Mr.
Lincoln Hybrid Tea Rose. Now, the Daredevil Claret
Geranium. Our wildflower garden is bereft.
But we notice another blue iris in our midst, then another.
A spread of alyssum amongst us, and roses galore.
We’ll see at least one more Daredevil Claret Geranium,
which won’t be the same as ours, gone forever.
Those who look upon our brave blooms,
Are different, somehow, because of us,
Because of the disappeared wildflowers. New
Flowers have found and bound themselves to us
To “bloom with ferocity and light.”
