Wildflower by Valerie Parente

Wildflower,
pressed against these pages,
just a bookmark of these phases,
in all your waxing and waning,
tissue paper petals for taking,
in this meadow I’ve been saving,
unintentional in all its making,
from seeds that stray adjacent,
once so wild, now so patient,
poetry on a page that’s been dated,
where my Wildflower lies naked,
years after the displacement,
a simple plant so complicated.

– Valerie Parente (5-4-2021)